THEATRE COUNTRY

Landscapes exist. They fascinate and entertain us. They reveal how the past produces the present. They nourish us and show us who we are, and who culturally, we have been. Landscapes live and are in constant flux, like all life systems. They disappear. They can be created…..We have come to understand landscapes as ‘things’ we cherish and want to keep not lose. One of New Zealand’s greatest challenges is managing the cherishing of beautiful landscapes, especially by those who want to live in them.1

Park is contesting the idea that ‘nature and the environment’ are an integral part of New Zealand’s culture, opening with cynicism toward the use our landscapes and nature being the major lure to attract tourists to New Zealand. Park believes residency in wild nature is not as prevalent as these smoke and mirror campaigns would have us believe. However New Zealand to the foreign does appear to be an untouched paradise largely because it has only been inhabited by settlers in the last few century’s, it’s lack of history and dominant structures erupting form the landscape culminate in it’s perception of a untouched wilderness.

We have ruined more natural beauty in the last half-century than any other pioneers.2

New Zealand’s ecological past has been tainted in such a short pocket of time. Since our arrival our pursuit to control and contain the wild have resulted in many Native birds extinction and substantial other losses. Due to the Nineteenth century agricultural revolution, Park believes we have carried out the most comprehensive transformations of indigenous nature the world has seen, brandishing New Zealand as one of the most ecologically transformed countries on Earth. Transformations in other countries may not appear as extreme as they have had a slower evolution on a larger scale. New Zealand’s underwhelming size enables the display and contrast of our protected and humanised landscapes magnified as they sit side by side. Park perceives New Zealand to have few examples of occupants living in harmony with wild nature.

Between protected sites and humanised sites we have very few of these middle landscapes remaining to inhabit. Park refers to the Waitakere Ranges as an example of the duality of a middle landscape. Perhaps they exist here as mountain ranges are not as easily controlled or contained, so this integration between residencies in the wild can be seen in these hard to reach places where many examples of habitation in mountainous terrain and far-flung regions can be seen throughout the country.

As a nation we have yet to define or perhaps even understand what landscapes mean to us. 3

End Notes.

1. Park, Geoff. Theatre Country: Essays on Landscape and Whenua. Wellington, 2006. p197.

2. Park, Geoff. Theatre Country: Essays on Landscape and Whenua. Wellington, 2006. p200.

3. Park, Geoff. Theatre Country: Essays on Landscape and Whenua. Wellington, 2006. p197.