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"Broadhead reveals a fantastic world" by Patrick Smith
(from Sunday Star Times March 16, 1997)

Warwick Broadhead is a man of vision: Epic vision; soaring, operatic vision. It can be a real problem.

The Auckland-born theatre director and performer has conceived and directed 50-odd shows over 25 years in settings as diverse as an Auckland warehouse and a West Coast forest. He sees an environment and new ideas tumble into his mind. But Broadhead's vision can be larger than the available resources.

This has been the case with The Willow Pattern Story, which ended last night after six performances during the Taranaki Festival of the Arts.

"Warwick is amazing," said festival worker Jane Wynyard last week, recalling Broadhead's first visit to New Plymouth's Pukekura Park and Brooklands Bowl, where the show was set. "We all sat down in a café after we'd been to the park and he just came out with all these incredible ideas."

But a limited budget, a disappointing response from would-be performers and backstage helpers, and some unforeseen problems meant the director had to compromise.

"When I got to that park my vision was huge," he said after a sell-out opening night. "I think it was too big, but it was so hard to cut back on that vision."

Willow Patterns audiences might wonder what else this man could possibly have thrown at them after visiting his colourful world, in which a cast of 60 exotically clad performers, floating tableaux, bush walks lit by 500 paper lanterns, horses, riders, a pop-up buried army, an interactive tea ceremony, a flaming house and a great Chinese dragon wove a magical spell over everyone present.

Well, for a start, the elephant didn't make it. Nor did the divers who were to appear from the lake in the front of the stage (the water was too toxic), or the abseilers.

And where were the other 200-odd participants he'd hoped for?

It seems a recent amateur production of 42nd Street and a people-hungry military tattoo may have sapped enthusiasm for further theatre involvement. Or, Broadhead muses, perhaps he's just not well-known in Taranaki.

The lack of people-power put pressure on the director. Two weeks before opening night, Broadhead revealed, he was ready to quit theatre. He was stressed and convinced the show would never see the light of day.

After opening night, however, he was able to categorise the difficulties as "labour pains" - dreadful at the time but soon forgotten.

"If I'd stopped doing theatre when things got really difficult, I'd have stopped long ago. It's a journey for me as well as the performers. I pushed them hard; they've had to put up with a lot from me."

For those brave and hardworking souls, however, it seems worth it.

Fourteen-year-old New Plymouth Girls High School student Corina Vaafusu, who played a member of the Monkey King's entourage, said: "It's been interesting, tough and quite tiring. But it went well so all the work was worth it."

Warwick Broadhead is already looking towards his next show, The Life and Times of Constance Flux ("all about exits and entrances"), which opens in Wellington in June. It's another community event involving around 70 performers, but within the comforting walls of Downstage Theatre - and without 500 paper lanterns to light every night.

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