Upon hearing former defence minister Wayne Mapp say recently that war is terrible and we make mistakes, playwright Dave Armstrong had one thought.
''Yeah, well, I could have told you that 100 years ago. The Gallipoli campaign was a disaster, yet it's become [part of] our mythology.''
Given Armstrong (Niu Sila, King and Country, The Motor Camp, and Le Sud) has been immersed in war history for a long time now, having worked on Te Papa's major Gallipoli exhibition and the Gallipoli section of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage's Nga Tapuwae app, as well as writing World War 1 play King and Country, he has some basis to his opinion.
''I wanted to do something different ... other than a historical drama. I'm a bit sick of them, really.''
His latest work, Anzac Eve, attempts to ask some of those questions around whether New Zealand has learned anything from its involvement in overseas wars.
''It's four quite different people who have all got connections to Gallipoli who turn up for a hook-up, potentially, to Anzac Cove. They are there to commemorate but that's not the only reason.
Two ''blokes'' from Dunedin turn up separately but turn out to know each other, as they went to intermediate school together and just run into each other. One doesn't care to remember the other but the other remembers him.
''So they're two quite different blokes on their OE, one's having a boozy time with his mates, the other is having a solitary journey.''
They run into two Aussie girls ''they like the look of'', one's a quite a conservative white Australian and the other is a Mozzie, a Maori who has lived in Australian all her life.
''It's an interesting bunch of kids, who all have different views on war. They sort of discuss a lot of different views of the First World War.
''And through what happens in the play it becomes very relevant and contemporary. I suppose the questions I'm asking are, have we learned anything from the past 100 years?''
The play also confronts some of the mythology around Gallipoli, for example, how people think the deaths there were mainly Australian and New Zealand, yet more French soldiers died there.
''It's an inconvenient fact, so we don't remember it.''
Armstrong did a pilgrimage to the Western Front on his ''OE'' but never went to Gallipoli.
''It's on my bucket list.''
He's a bit like one of the characters in the play, who has done a 300-page thesis on Gallipoli but never actually been there.
The characters in the play - Hayden Frost, (The Almighty Johnsons, Richard II, Public Service Announcements), Ruby Hansen (Second Afterlife, Circa Theatre), Barnaby Olson (No Post on Sunday, Grimm Bedtime Stories, Circa Theatre, An Awfully Big Adventure), and Trae Te Wiki (The Trickle Down Effect, Last Meals) - are the same age as the men and women who fought and were killed.
''It was great fun for me to get the language right. It's a great test of a playwright to write in that style.''
Armstrong grew up at the height of the Vietnam War and was at an age when he was not that interested in his grandfather's war stories, told to him when he was learning the trumpet, aged 10.
''The tunes I was playing reminded him of the times he was in the trenches. I was rude; I didn't really listen.''
It was not until after his grandfather died that he realised they were good stories and he read some poems his grandfather wrote. He became quite interested in war history, especially the plight of Maori soldiers.
After finishing the Gallipoli exhibition, as an antidote to the work, he decided, while celebrating and commemorating, to also ask a few questions, so ''we don't repeat mistakes'', but recent events suggested the country has not learned, he said, referring to the revelations in Nicky Hager's recent book Hit & Run.
''That got me going. I suppose the job of the playwright is to ask those difficult questions, so I'm trying to do it respectfully.''
As Armstrong had read that 40% of New Zealanders supported neither sending soldiers to World War 1 nor conscription being introduced in 1916, that backed that up, he believed.
''No-one was joining up.''
He thought when he first wrote Anzac Eve that people might be offended by the content, as he recognised some of the questions could be confronting. However, people wearing RSA medals who saw the first reading of his play at the Festival of Colour in Wanaka two years ago were very supportive.
''I don't think it's that controversial. Is it controversial to question war and what we have done in Afghanistan and Iraq? And to say Gallipoli is a bit over-hyped? I'm not the first person to say that, by any means. I suppose going to some small towns, maybe they'll find it controversial. It'll be quite interesting to see.''
It is a one-hour play which is long enough for the intense topic, Armstrong says.
''Any longer and it wouldn't work.''
Having written two plays about World War 1, he does not see another one on the horizon. It is early days but he is looking at doing another music project - he has written an opera before and a musical - and a couple of smaller plays.
''There's always promises to keep.''
Music is where Armstrong first started out before diverting into acting. At drama school he discovered writing.
''I wasn't a good actor. I didn't realise it at the time but it was better training for writing than acting.''
At university, he teamed up with a friend and wrote sketches and music.
That led to writing sketch comedy for television and then on to writing plays.
''Then I realised a good play was lots of sketches joined together.''
He likes to think his approach is quite practical. Rather than sitting in a room in a ''rarefied atmosphere thinking about the great ideas of our times'', sometimes what can make a play work is quite technical things.
''Anzac Eve would be nowhere near as good if it wasn't the four young characters I've chosen.
''Often I think of something and think 'yeah, it's a good idea, but it wouldn't make a good play'.''
The play was commissioned by the Festival of Colour and funded by the New Zealand WW1 Centenary Fund.
Armstrong says it has developed since then, as has the audience, which is more questioning now than it was in the middle of commemorations a few years ago.
''I was blown away. Seeing the audience reaction is great. Perhaps they are more accepting than two years ago.''
Given both his grandfathers were returned servicemen and wounded in the war, they were possibly turning in their graves, he says, although he paid tribute to his grandfathers in the first play.
''I like to think they might have enjoyed it. I might be totally deluded.''
His grandmother was a bit of a pacifist. A family story goes that when her uncles went to the recruitment office to sign up, her father said it was the proudest day of his life and she commented he was a ''stupid bugger''.
''I can't forget that story.''
So given his grandmother was also an amateur writer, his doubting and pesky questioning is probably part of his cultural heritage, he says.
When asked if he is a pacifist he says, ''sometimes''.
Sometimes taking up arms is necessary to defeat things like apartheid or the Nazis, he said.
But he questions New Zealand's involvements in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea and Malaya.
''I can't say they're the morally right things to do, so I suppose I'm a pacifist nine times out of 10.
''Using terror to fight terrorists puts you on very dodgy ground, as we've found out this week.''
To see
Anzac Eve, Allen Hall Theatre, Dunedin, Thursday April 27, 2017, 7pm and Oamaru Opera House, Oamaru, North Otago April 24, 7.30pm
