Playwright Dave Armstrong talks about the origins
of his new play, set in a school gymnasium, Kings
of the Gym.
The initial
idea for Kings of the Gym probably
occurred in the mid-1970s in the gymnasium of my local secondary school. I
remember back then that most gymnasiums in co-ed schools were like little
man-caves – oases of testosterone where the PE teachers, who were usually male,
ruled the roost. In their striped tracksuit trousers, with the ever-present
whistles around their necks, these teachers would command us to go on long
cross-country runs and play all sorts of games, which were highly competitive
and very physical. Most of us enjoyed them but heaven help you if you were
overweight, bookish or both. Liberal English, drama and art teachers wouldn’t
go near the school gymnasium, preferring the coffee plungers, literary
magazines and pottery mugs of the staff room.
Though as a
breed, PE teachers seemed to be very different from other teachers, I enjoyed
their company immensely. They were almost all uniformly contemptuous of modern,
progressive education and perhaps therein lay their appeal. After a day of
interactive learning I quite enjoyed playing a highly physical and competitive
game of now-forbidden bull-rush in the gym. What interested me is that my
liberal teachers, whom I really liked and respected, couldn’t believe that I
enjoyed spending time in the company of the ‘Neanderthals’ in the PE
department. It was true that these PE teachers could be boorish and insensitive
at times, very like Laurie in the play, but I also knew that these kings of the
gym really liked kids. And it’s very hard to dislike someone who likes you.
But Kings of the Gym is not really about PE
teachers. The gym is merely the setting – that got me thinking about a variety
of things. One was that a scummy, dirty gym of a tawdry, failing, low-decile
school would be a really challenging place in which to set a romantic comedy.
But as well as
being a gym rom-com, Kings of the Gym
also looks at a number of issues, not just the obvious ones to do with politics
and education, but also wider human issues such as tolerance.
We all think we
are tolerant, but real tolerance is
another issue altogether. As I was writing this play, a number of social and
religious groups such as Destiny Church, Family First and Sensible Sentencing
hit the headlines. Some of the members of these groups are highly intolerant,
especially of gay rights groups, liberals, prisoners, schoolteachers and
judges, to name a few. But I also noticed a growing intolerance amongst people
like me to Christians and other conservative groups.
What would
happen if people from these opposing groups found themselves all in the same
place, say in a school gymnasium? It was then that I realised that even though
only one of the four characters in Kings
of the Gym is religious, this play is really about a battle for the soul.
Each character seems to want every other character to think like them and
believe what they believe – and are all prepared to fight to get their way. I
found this battle both intriguing and at times very funny.
So how do I
describe this battle for the soul set in that most unlikely colosseum – a
school gymnasium? Kings of the Gym is
definitely a comedy, though perhaps less of a farce than my last play at Circa,
The Motor Camp. It features four
good-natured, intelligent characters who are fun to be with. Luckily, Kings of the Gym is performed by four
good-natured, intelligent actors who are fun to be with, so rehearsals, helmed
by my old friend and colleague Danny Mulheron, have been a blast. We were also
in the same PE class at school so have had a lot of fun recalling some of the
more outrageous events that happened in our run-down, tawdry little school gym.
Kings of the Gym opens on Saturday, 19 January, with $25 ticket specials for the Preview on Friday, 18 January and the matinee on Sunday, 20 January. To book tickets, call the Circa Box Office on 801-7992 or visit www.circa.co.nz.
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