Writing a scene in which a young Angelina Moleta says goodbye to her family on the tiny volcanic island of Stromboli, off Sicily, as she departs to travel to another island on the other side of the world, actor and playwright Martine Baanvinger lost her heart.
"Angelina fell into me as a character; departing Stromboli was such a painful process. It hit me, it is my story too in a way, of course it’s a different time — that is where we connected, we are both immigrants to this beautiful country."
Netherlands-born, Baanvinger’s last show, Aperture, also featured an immigrant, Dutch-born photographer Ans Westra.
"There’s definitely a theme there, for sure."
So it is no surprise that Moleta’s story of being betrothed to her cousin Vincenzo Moleta at age 8 and being brought by him at age 16 to D’Urville Island in New Zealand to toil on a pioneer farm, as told by her grandson, Golden Bay author Gerard Hindmarsh, stayed with her for more than 10 years.
"It struck me as such an amazing life for a young woman. I was very much struck by the similarities of her coming from a very remote island to another very remote island. I thought one day I’d do a play on it."
That day came just before the first Covid lockdown, so Baanvinger approached Hindmarsh — one Golden Bay creative to another — and received his blessing to turn the story into a play.
"I spent a lot of time with Gerard; he was super supportive. It’s really exciting when you have a subject or topic and you have a direct line. I was very lucky.
"That way I felt I could slowly chip away at getting to know Angelina. She was quite an introverted character and I could find out how Gerard thought she was thinking or feeling."
It was also the first time the actor, director and producer of nearly 30 years had turned a book into a script.
"I didn’t realise how hard it would be. It took a very long time.
A proponent of physical theatre in which the whole body is used to tell a story, Baanvinger is more used to creating her own work from scratch on a topic in which she is interested. Then there is a minimum amount of information available so the text emerges from herself.
"The body of work is not huge. It’s more of an internal experience that goes into words but this was the other way around — there were so many words that I had to bring it down to my experience of it."
It became her biggest challenge to get it down to an hour and a-half and to bring in the emotional and physical experience.
"It took a very long time to get it into a script. Even two weeks before the [first] show it was still too long."
Baanvinger also believes it is very important not to forget the lessons of the past.
"We need to tell the stories of our ancestors to move forward into the future. There are the experiences of many different people who came to New Zealand and this touches on the Italian Stromboli community. There is a big Stromboli community in New Zealand."
There were only four places in the world the islanders went: New York, Buenos Aires, Melbourne and then Wellington.
"There are thousands of descendants here, it was really interesting."
Baanvinger has no Italian ancestry but to help make her work as authentic as possible, she has been learning Italian for the past 18 months so she can speak with an Italian accent and pronounce words correctly.
"I’m speaking English but with a strong Italian accent. It’s been a wonderful part of the project, the research. Italians are all about food, that’s what I’ve learnt."
That Baanvinger’s plays regularly feature strong women is also noticeable.
"I’ve always very intrigued by strong women even from a little girl. I remember reading about Joan of Arc for the first time when I was 7 — I was totally intrigued by her. My speeches at school were always about strong women in history like Boudica, people like that."
It is a fascination she traces back to her own Dutch heritage in which women have a strong position in society.
"My mum was always standing up for herself. She grew up in a different era, just after the war. She was always protective of being a woman and having a say and she wanted to have a say. I think it’s where it’s from. It’s not an unusual thing, a lot of Dutch women have a strong identity."
In this particular play, Angelina goes on quite a journey and it is quite an emotional roller-coaster.
"There are a lot of points in her life she goes through big hardship. There are lots of big shifts from a real low to a real high."
"I love doing this. I’m experiencing these feelings at the same time. I love that challenge as an actor."
Another test to her skills is playing different characters, something she has not done much in her solo shows before.
"I’m portraying other people in the community and Angelina’s family as well. It’s been really fun to play with. There are some colourful characters inspired by Gerard’s writing in the book. "
One character she took a while to work out how to portray is high-born Māori woman Wetekia Ruruku Elkington who became Moleta’s best friend.
"She is such an important part of Angelina’s life. She came from a close-knit family and small village and she came to D’Urville where there was no-one. She missed her village and was very lonely."
The only person she had on the island was her cousin, Rosa, who came out with her and married her brother-in-law but a family rift developed and the two women did not get along.
"There was an isolation in her own family. They were living next to each other but not speaking, not able to tolerate each other. It’s a sad part of the show the family feud."
So Elkington became Moleta’s "village", representing many different parts of her life back home.
"She was her midwife, her fellow believer, her doctor, her best friend, her teacher. It was a very beautiful friendship."
Baanvinger is not stepping into Elkington’s shoes as she is not Māori and does not have the same intimate connection with her family. So she is represented by the music, set and through Moleta’s experience.
"She is a woman who has many descendants in the region and is highly honoured and respected. She was a really independent strong women who was trying to keep the old traditional ways of Māori living and weaving alive."
Elkington taught Moleta many of the old skills of weaving.
As part of keeping the flow of a show going, Baanvinger never drops a curtain or stops the show.
"I really believe the flow and dynamic of the play is so important to keep people gripped and keep them with me I don’t do set changes. They happen but subtly when I’m still talking. I do it all my shows."
She also believes it drives creativity when it comes to the set and probably comes from her early days acting in the Netherlands in the 1990s, where she attended the Theatre Academy in Amsterdam and co-founded the BARR-theatre collective in Rotterdam.
"We had no funding. We had no money so we learned from a young age to create a lot from nothing. I still see that as one of my best learnings. That part probably made us the most creative and resilient artists."
To assist with the storytelling, Baanvinger and her technical team have been working a lot with colour and shapes to help mark the shifts. She also wanted to ensure it looked different from an earlier work Solitude which was set in a similar time.
"I think we have succeeded. I’m really pleased. We’ve used really bold colours and shapes which are repeated throughout the show. There is a lot of layers to it."
One of the key parts of the set is a glory box. When Moleta travelled to New Zealand she brought with her the box filled with delicate linens and cotton embroidered for her on her marriage.
"It’s still in New Zealand, in Wellington, but was too fragile to use so we built one and put it on wheels so we can move it around. So it is the centrepiece."
Having a continuously changing set of few parts is something Baanvinger is passionate about. She also uses long strips of white fabric to transform into all sorts of things from pasta, to babies, to flax.
"The box is used for everything too. It becomes a bath, a lounger, a boat."
The flexible set is important given they are travelling the South Island in the Arts on Tour van so have limited space available for big props.
"We can play it in any setting from really small spaces to really big theatres."
She was very appreciative of the support of Arts on Tour which allows artists from small centres to tour work they would otherwise be unable to do.
TO SEE:
Red Heavens, From Stromboli to D’Urville Island, Martine Baanvinger, July 21, 7.30pm, Oamaru, Inkbox Theatre, Oamaru Opera House; July 23, 7pm Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall; July 24, 7:30 pm Waikaia, The Lodge223; July 25, 8pm Gore, Eastern Southland Gallery; July 26, 7pm Invercargill, Whare Taupua Community Arts Space.
