Write a letter

3/03/2010 10:53:00 a.m.

Benoit Blanc in The Letter Writer.

I have a large TV-sized box filled with letters that friends wrote me while I was at school, stored in the roof of my parents’ house. I can’t bring myself to throw them away.
Playwright, producer and director Juliet O’Brien loves letters too. She can’t remember the last time she received one, no wait, it was probably from her mother. She says it is sad how the centuries old form of communication has been overwritten by the instantaneousness and immediacy of email, and the convenience of Skype.
But her new play The Letter Writer, which tells the story of an illiterate political exile writing to his wife through a l’ecrivain public (meaning ‘ public writer’ in French), reveals the art has not died altogether. Before she penned the show in France, O’Brien was surprised to discover professional letter writers, and interviewed several as research.
Some described writing wedding speeches, others wrote cover letters for CVs and another wrote a biography of the lives of a woman’s children.
“It’s a fantastic profession [that helps] people who don’t have the power of words,” she says. One writer she spoke to said her hardest job was writing a wedding speech for someone who didn’t want the couple to get married. In the end the letter writer realised it had become “a hate/vengeance thing” and told them to deal with it another way.
“Letter writers must feel like therapists because people end up talking about their lives,” O’Brien says. “[The letter writer] has to put themselves in a person’s skin when they are writing things like speeches. You want the words to sound like the person saying them.”
The Letter Writer will debut in New Zealand during the NZ International Arts Festival, after it enjoyed three seasons in France.
O’Brien says the Wellington premiere is important to her because this is where she grew up. The former St Mary’s and Victoria University student moved to France when she was 24 and is still living there 20 years later.
“To create universality” the play is set in two fictitious countries, says O’Brien.
“I didn’t want people to say ‘that situation happened on whatever date’, I want people to walk away and say ‘that is the case in so many different countries’.”
The play is a reminder that “there is nothing like sitting down to write a letter on an empty piece of paper”.
Dawn Tratt
The Letter Writer, Circa Theatre, March 7-21.

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Cover Story

Best of Wellington 2011

Fringe Festival

Briefs

Plane direction
A new training academy will open in June to help fill a shortage of qualified air traffic controllers in the Middle East and Asia. Global-ATS, a privately owned UK-based academy, will operate from the Wellington School of Business and Government campus. The academy will open with three staff, up to 10 air traffic control students and 70 associated safety management course participants.
Here comes the sun
WELLINGTON city council is one of several New Zealand councils signing up for Solar Promise, a campaign launched last July by the Nelson Environment Centre. The scheme aims to take away barriers to using solar energy and make the technology more affordable. City Council is working with the Regional Council to develop a targeted rate for solar hot water systems, as well as setting up an online map to indicate levels of solar radiation across the city.
Parsons stays put
JULIAN Parsons says his bookstore Parsons Books and Music isn’t going anywhere, despite news that brother Roger’s Auckland Parsons store is closing its doors. Parsons opened in 1958 on Lambton Quay and is still on the same site today.
Bikes allowed
Bikes will soon be allowed on trains on the Johnsonville line at all times following a review by the Greater Wellington Regional Council. Councillor Daran Ponter says that the introduction of the new Matangi units on the line, scheduled for mid-March 2012, means that there will be greater capacity than currently provided by the English Electric units.
Carter clean and green
TEAM members at Carter Observatory have been recognised as keen greenies. Carter has won a Qualmark Enviro-Bronze Award for high standards in environmental practices including energy efficiency, waste management and water conservation. More than 700 businesses carry the Enviro Award mark.
Bowling for a market
MORE than 25 stalls will be waiting behind the fence at the 100 year old Hataitai Bowling Club at the suburb’s Community Market on Saturday. The stalls include sweet treats, produce, books and vintage clothing. The market runs the first Saturday of each month.
Hataitai Community Market, Bowling Club, 9am-1pm, February 4.
Iconic tour
THE second largest wooden building in the world graces Lambton Quay near the Cenotaph and it’s now open on Saturdays for free tours. The colonial-style Government Building features a Kauri-clad interior and cast iron fireplaces.
Government Building Open Day tours, 11am and 2pm, Saturdays, until March 31.
Get arty
FOR those who would like to progress from finger-painting, artist Stephanie Woodman is running classes to teach drawing and painting in a range of styles and mediums. Sessions include acrylic painting techniques, glazing, watercolour and abstract, and there are special classes for teenagers and kids.
Stephanie Woodman art classes, Toi Poneke, Feb 7 – April 5.
Wheels are turning
WELLINGTON Regional Council’s Daran Ponter and Paul Bruce are to present the Bus Review, a proposal for a major shakeup of bus services in the city. It’s also a chance for the public to discuss their ideas and issues.
Bus Review, Crossways Community Centre, 7.30pm, February 7.
Violinist awarded
CONGRATULATIONS to violinist Minsi Yang, recently awarded The Elman Poole Music scholarship.
The scholarship is an annual award for up and coming New Zealand instrumentalists to train with the London orchestra, Southbank Sinfonia.
Yang gained her music degree from Victoria University, before heading to Auckland to study for her Masters degree.
Leap into song
LOCAL songwriters will this month participate in February Album Writing Month, an international songwriting event that usually challenges participants to write a song every two days for the whole month. But it’s a leap year this year, so songwriters have to write 14 and a half songs in 29 days, the ‘half song’ being a collaboration with another writer. At least 12 Wellington songwriters have signed up to take part. ‘Fawmers’ will post audio recordings of their songs on http://fawm.org
Coastal tunes
THE Tora Coast in the Wairarapa will this Waitangi weekend host a music festival celebrating good food and good sounds. TORA!TORA!TORA! features Imon Starr aka Olmecha the Relic, Jon McLeary and The Spines, Louis Baker, Vanessa Stacey and Conor McCabe. This is the third time the festival will take place.

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