1 have already pinpointed one area of unresolved trauma in the breakdown and
suicide of the mother, and illustrated how, because of his 'own peculiar neurosis' Features "First Return'" 1 0), Thompson returns obsessively to this subject which is inextricably linked to the memory of the blown-off roof. The emotional dynamic forged between mother and son in Thompson's early life forms the template for his most intimately-drawn characters of 'the female margin. '
Thompson expressed his devotion to his mother in Oedipal terms: 'I do know that ours was a blood-bond which caused terrible strife and that my love for her carried strong overtones of the sort of thing that has sons slaying their fathers at dusty crossroads. And all that follows' Lives 20).
In his historical drama documentaries Thompson avoids delving into the inner world of his characters. In 'O! Temperance!,' for example, he makes no mention of Kate Sheppard's emotional life and Taylor's private life takes up barely a page of the script 1 06- 1 07). When writing of his mother, however, Thompson is always tapping into raw emotion. This is indicated not only by the quotation above, but also by the recurrent passages which picture the poignant image of the depressed mother, on the verge of breakdown, at the ' sacrificial shrines' of the stove and the copper (All Lives 2 1 ; 'First Return' 43; Coaltown Blues 33,35).
In his second autobiography, the Thompson emphasizes how the
closeness of what he terms his 'blood-bond' with his mother is integral to his creative process. Whilst working on the final draft of Coaltown Blues he experimented with cutting out some of the key scenes relating to the mother. It was only then that he realized the importance of this character to the play: ' [T]he world of Muriel, the Mother in Coaltown 1 know better than anyone. Her
centre of the canvas. Where she belongs' (29).57 Clearly, then, not only the Mother in 'First Return,' but also Muriel in Coaltown Blues exemplify Thompson's predilection to 'unmask' : to present not dramatic masks but characters drawn from life on the stage.
When Thompson's mother spoke to him of her inner world she expressed the 'intensity' of her 'vision' in evocative images, such as the one of the Holocaust. It must be remembered, however, that for the most part she remained inscrutable to her son. On the day of her suicide, for example, she sent him off to work as usual, giving him no indication of her state of mind.
In 'First Return' the Accuser Demon58 explains Simon's reaction to his mother's suicide:
In dying she chose her release, you understood that and accepted it . . . But somewhere there was a darker thought. You felt that she had betrayed you, denied you, cheated you. After all those partial abandonments in houses for the mentally ill, now she had deserted you once and for all - by becoming the putrefying corpse that now you
see 66).
The relationship between mother and son, already complex enough with its Oedipal overtones, is complicated further when the son feels that ' [a]fter all those partial abandonments' the woman he worships has fmally 'betrayed' him. A similar paradox of attraction and repulsion is demonstrated in Thompson's other works that explore sexual relationships between the male protagonist and other women. The emotional dynamic which was initiated between mother and son is
57 It is significant that a photograph of the character of Mother lying in her coffin (played by Judy Cleine in the first production of the play at the Court Theatre in 1 974) makes up the sole image both on the programme and on the front cover of the first printed version of the text.
58 In 'First Return' 'the ghosts of the past which had always haunted' Thompson ( 'Act Features "First Return'" 1 0) are turned into stage representations whom Thompson calls ' Demons' 36). At the end of the play they act as a chorus, the 'menagerie,' and as Simon takes the role of the 'ringmaster' they all 'dance' to his tambourine (68). Georg Buchner, one of the first playwrights to place working class characters at the centre of the plot, in his unfinished but very influential play 'Woyzeck' also alludes to the working class characters as circus animals. ' Woyzeck' was first produced in 1 9 1 3 , seventy-six years after Buchner's death.
repeated throughout the playwright's life with all women to whom he is sexually attracted.
In All Lives Thompson recalls how, when he was a young man, his affair with a married 'high school teacher' incurred the disapproval of his teammates and resulted in his being dropped from the rugby side (65). This translates in 'First Return' into a duplicate scenario of the 'schoolmistress [ . . . ] a dozen years older than you,' a married woman who seduces the virgin Simon and with whom he has an affair despite the disapproval of his rugby team 52-54).
Like his mother, the 'schoolmistress' is already married, is older than Simon, and becomes the centre of his emotional focus. It is due to her influence that Simon 'deserted the hot cunt of the masculine world forever' (54).59 In return for his devotion, this substitute mother bestows the comfort of her nurture: 'And it was so warm there, under the blind, bland glow of your attention. To lie on my back and gaze up at your firm, white breasts, smell your cool, female smells, touch your flesh' (55).
This 'warm' place where the woman bestows the 'glow' of her 'attention' appears to be one of comfort and security but turns all of a sudden into a place of pain and insecurity when the substitute mother, like his own mother, proves to be inscrutable and unpredictable. In a key incident, which becomes the turning-point in their relationship, Simon suddenly and without warning begins to relate the story of his life. Though the details of what he says are not revealed to the audience, obviously the mother figure dominates the narrative: ' [F]or a moment it was like the floodbanks bursting! I could be free, carried off on a full tide out of
59 There is an obvious sexual reference in this remark which implies that the homosocial world of rugby contains homosexual elements within it. This theme is explored in where three of the characters, George (who gives the play its name), Frank and Vince, are all latent homosexuals. This play re-works part of the narrative in All Lives and 'First Return' when the protagonist, Red, earns the disapproval of his rugby mates because of the closeness of his relationship with the team's Captain, George. Red is sympathetic to George's predicament in being sexually attracted to him, but in the end rejects the homosexual alternative in favour of a working class girl, Carol. Red is another example of the ' unmask. ' When the play opens he is a coalminer living in a pub. In All Lives Thompson records that he lived at the local hotel whilst working down the pit in Reefton and playing for the local rugby team Lives 47-50, 62, 64-66). At the end of the play, because of the difficulties of his relationship with George, Red leaves Blacktown for Christchurch. After his difficulties with the 'schoolmistress' Thompson took the same course of action (66-67).
my doubt to some new land.' Just as suddenly, in the ' full tide' of emotion, his lover arrests him: 'No! You mustn't tell me that, I don't want to hear. Forget about your mother [ . . . ]. Leave the past where it is. You mustn't be neurotic, that's not what I want from you [ . . . ] no confessions. [ . . . ] Come and make love to me.' Simon complies, but as '{t]hey embracefiercely' he becomes increasingly
' brutal' in his lovemaking ' in the/ace a/rejection' (54-55).
In that moment Simon perceives that his lover wants him to appear to her only in the mask he has created of himself to fulfil her fantasies: 'You wanted your own images of me and that is what you got. A young animal with a surprising brain' (55). He is to be her sexual 'animal,' her 'troglodyte' (25). Recognizing instinctively that the subject of the mother is an area of neurosis, she is not willing to reveal to him her inner world or to enter into his. So, from Simon' s point of view, the relationship with the 'schoolmistress' repeats the emotional dynamic that existed between mother and son: Oedipal overtones accompanied by the 'darker' feelings that Simon experiences in reaction to his mother's suicide, 'that she had betrayed you, denied you, cheated you' (66). In an atmosphere of growing distrust, Simon recognises that in the end he and his 'schoolmistress' never really communicated: 'But you never spoke to me. And you never let me speak' (55).
Learning this lesson well, Simon adopts a self-imposed silence in his relationships with the other women to whom he is strongly attracted in 'First Return. ' Noticeably all these women are representatives of the middle class Pakeha settler society. The Accuser Demon points out that lack of communication was also a feature of Simon's second affair and that silence became an integral part of the relationship: '[Y]ou spoke to no-one. Not even to the psychiatrist you went to when your first city love - the one with the private school education - hurt you into impotence' (56). Christine reveals that Simon is repeating the same pattern by refusing to communicate with her on anything other than a physical level: 'You swing without warning from impotence to a lust so desperate that I feel it will destroy us both - and wilfully exclude me from any other kind of intimacy' (63).
The exposition of this male-female dynamic, which is broached in Thompson's first play, makes up the entire three Acts of his last play, 'Lovebirds. ' Like the 'schoolmistress,' 'the first city love' and Christine in 'First Return,' the Judith of 'Lovebirds' is a representative of 'the inner margin.' All these lovers are from what Thompson termed 'Blandland,' which he defines as the 'aspiring middle class' ('Theatre and Working Class Politics' 19). A fundamental difference in class and attitude exists between these women and the respective protagonists, despite the latters' success and education. They are 'slumming it,' fantasizing about him in his mask as 'troglodyte. ' Equally he fantasizes about each of them as the ideal woman. Simon says to Christine in 'First Return' : 'Yes, our worlds are different. As a child I dreamed of standing alone outside a magic window in the snow. Looking in at the beautiful fairy tale princess who was at once, child and woman. [ . . . ] Well, you're the princess' 64).60 Similarly the Counsellor in ' Lovebirds' tells David that he has turned Judith into a 'demi
goddess' and Other 98).61
Thompson paints a sympathetic portrait ofthe 'demi-goddess' from Blandland. In 'First Return' Simon acknowledges that the 'schoolmistress' was, in fact, his mentor: 'You taught me a great deal and I'll never forget it' 54). He recalls especially how his lover educated him in the arts - '[Y]ou taught me about Eliot and Bartok and Chagall' - and then was selfless enough not to hold him back from further studies: 'And when it was time, you encouraged me to go' (55). In the same play, despite the differences in their philosophies, when Christine becomes Simon's lover, she also nurtures him like a mother. At one stage, for example, ' CHRISTINE holds SIMON, as one comforting the sufferer of
a bad dream' (57). In 'Lovebirds,' despite their constant wrangling, Judith 'sobs
uncontrollably' because, as the Counsellor explains, she loves David
and Other 84).
60 Thompson makes an allusion to the genre of the fairy tale in this sequence. Black points this out
in relation to the text of 'First Return': 'In the fairy-tale Simon is the penniless suitor in quest of
the beautiful princess. [ . . . ] Love, unexamined and unexplained, is said to solve everything. With
a kiss she could transform this "frog" into the Prince fit to share her kingdom.' Black then goes on
to interpret Simon' s affair with his ' schoolmistress' as an allusion to the fairy tale of and
the Beast: 'Beauty and the Beast becomes female flesh and the troglodyte' ('Four Plays in Search of a Theatre' 1 2).
61
There are echoes here of Strindberg's 'Miss lulie,' a play about the attraction between a working class man and a woman of a higher status in society.
In the character of David, Thompson creates another 'unmask' of himself on the stage.
62
In All Lives Thompson writes that during his mother's stays in the mental hospital he was 'farmed out under Child Welfare' (12). Similarly in 'Lovebirds,' David is an artist who, as a child, has spent periods in 'welfarehomes' and Other 68). David's description of himself as
an artist also reflects that of his creator: 'Orphan kid become Artist-of-of-the People [ . . . ]. All the brave causes, I was there' (79)
In ' Lovebirds' the relationship between the central couple becomes increasingly violent as the play progresses. Murray Horton commented wryly of the play in performance: 'Everything not nailed down is smashed (don't sit in the front row)' ('Review of "Lovebirds'" 3 1 ). There are suggestions in 'First Return' that the relationship between Simon and his 'schoolmistress' has the potential to develop into violence when Simon becomes increasingly 'brutal' in his lovemaking
5 5). 'Lovebirds,' however, is much more extreme in its graphic description of a seemingly endless cycle of intercourse interrupted by scenes of physical and emotional abuse. David says of the relationship, '[a]ll we ever seem to do these days is battle each other or make love. There's nothing between' and Other 75). At frequent times in the play the couple attack each other. Judith hits David with her fists (63) and pulls a knife on him (64). He, in retaliation, slaps her across the face (64), throws her against a wall and breaks her rib (65) and then hits her in public (69). As their confrontations become increasingly destructive Judith threatens to kill David along with his child and his former wife and the police intervene (72-73). When the play closes David is awaiting trial for having threatened to murder Judith (89).
The emotional dynamic in 'Lovebirds' is a repetition of the relationship that existed between Thompson's parents, though it is expressed in an expanded and more extreme form. In both cases the relationship is conducted in an atmosphere
62 As part of the process of the ' unmask' also, it is worth noting that Thompson himself performed the role of David in some performances due to the illness of the leading actor.
of sexual jealousy amid accusations of unfaithfulness.63 Thompson identifies 'sexual jealousy' Lives 1 6), for example, as one of the key elements in the 'domestic battles' ( 1 5) of his childhood and says, 'both of my parents were extremely possessive, especially my father' (1 6). In others of his plays, the portrait of the warring parents, which is drawn from life, displays a similar dynamic. In Coaltown Blues the mother flings at the father: 'You fondled my sister in front of me when I lay in bed too weak to move! ' ( 1 6). In 'First Return' the Mother displays no remorse for spending the night with a travelling salesman in a 'cheap hotel. ' When the father accuses her o f behaving 'like a whore' she defiantly describes the experience as 'a moment or two of freedom' (Selected
44).
When 'Lovebirds' opens each of the lovers is already married to another partner and David is consistently unfaithful both to his wife and to Judith. As the relationship develops Judith, too, claims the right to have affairs which, like the Mother in 'First Return,' she expresses as part of her definition of 'freedom' : 'What I want, David, i s the freedom to make up my own mind! [ . . . ] -freedom to
go where I like, see who I like [ . . . ] fuck who I like' and Other
78).
In 'Lovebirds,' however, the language of recrimination is more extreme as physical passion is described in terms of gutter sex. Judith describes David's infidelities as 'a screw, a bit of tail, a bit of crutch, a bit of hare pie!' He, in retaliation, like the Father in 'First Return,' speaks of his woman as a whore: 'Fuck your man, have a giggle, wash your cunt and then off to another! ' (7 1 ). The explicit domestic violence and sexual language expressed in Thompson's scripts were highly unusual in the New Zealand theatre of the time and 'Lovebirds' represents its most extreme expression. Horton acknowledges this: 'What it [the play] depicts is definitely not "nice," in fact it's downright ugly. It uncompromisingly confronts audiences with an aspect of life that very few people
63 Again on the theme of sexual jealousy Thompson directed a highly acclaimed production of 'Othello' in Christchurch in 1 989 in which he played Iago.
are comfortable with, and a lot have never experienced' ('Review of "Lovebirds'"
32).
At the time of his death Thompson left an unfinished novel among his papers which is strikingly similar to the script of 'Lovebirds. ' The protagonist of the novel (which is untitled) is called Stephen but the woman he has an affair with, as in 'Lovebirds,' is called Judith and their relationship repeats the same pattern of abuse that is to be found in the play. This Judith, for example, is in the habit of pulling a knife on Stephen of Novel 65, 79) and she threatens to kill both him and his child with it (1 1 1). He, in retaliation, breaks her rib (64_65).64
The text of the novel is of great significance because it confirms what the play texts only suggest: that the template for the relationship in ' Lovebirds' is to be found in the emotional dynamic that existed between Thompson's parents. In the novel Judith's taunting drives Stephen to distraction and to physical violence, but as he succumbs to it he experiences a vivid moment of deja vu:
Even as he'd hit her the doubleness had intruded, [ . . . ] like an exposure in a negative already laden with image. All through his childhood he'd seen it, the fury of his mother calling up the violence of his father. [ . . . ] What he had never known, however, not until this moment, was the exhilaration that came with the giving of the blow
(96).
Both ' Lovebirds' and the novel tell the story of an obsessive affair which slowly dies over a period of thirteen or fourteen years and Other
64 The protagonist in the novel is yet another example of the 'unmask. ' Like his creator, Stephen
is a man of the theatre who writes and directs plays. When the novel opens Stephen's new play