Landscapes of the rich and Russian.

​The BBC have made a new series of War & Peace that I found completely engrossing. I’m trying to figure out why. On the surface, it could be pretty trite. It’s full of rich people who love each other but can’t seem to make it work. I reckon that what elevates it is that the INTERIOR LANDSCAPE of the characters is being paralleled on an epic scale by the EXTERIOR LANDSCAPE - what’s happening to their nation. Russia is bursting with dilemma – the French are on their doorstep and centuries of civilisation, culture, wealth and privilege is at stake. Do they risk it all by fighting Napoleon? Or risk it all by making peace with him? Does Napoleon offer promise of even greater civilisation? Or are their traditional Russian ways superior? What’s best? War or Peace? In the end they try both. War & Peace. That’s why it’s such a great title. And it’s such a great story because those same environmental dilemmas are being paralleled in each character’s emotional landscape. Each character’s soul teeters between war and peace. Each chooses both.
 
Pierre has it all, money and status wise. But he’s unhappy. So he decides he has to change. He joins the Masons, and devotes himself to doing good for others. That makes him happy for a time, but then everyone takes advantage of him. His wife fucks other men, what’s he meant to do? Let her? Stop her? He’s miserable again. In the meantime, he loves Natasha, but then so does Andre – so Pierre stands aside for Andre – Pierre’s married after all. And Natasha loves Andre. Sure, Pierre loves Natasha too, but he feels it’s important to do the honourable thing and he feels rotten doing the honourable thing. Each character has delightful variations on the above. And the way they handle their emotional dilemmas varies. Some live, some die, some find content, others don’t. In the end your emotional fate seems as arbitrary as whether or not you survive a physical battle.
 
Now to my play. In The Land of the Moa, George based his sensation around the eruption of the Pink & White Terraces. It’s a spectacular stage event but it doesn’t particularly relate to what’s going on for the characters emotionally. It could – there’s Maori/Pakeha relations at a boiling point, an evil man being evil and Noblem trying and usually failing to do right by his ward, Mavis.  
 
So now, having followed the plot in my adaptation, I have to go back and examine what’s really going on, or what I want to go on for all my characters emotionally. Then I need to map it onto a parallel environment. What’s the promise of this colonial landscape? What’s the danger? What are their dilemmas?
 
My first instinct is that a sense of self-respect is at stake for each character and for the country. What does it mean to be civil in the context of colonial New Zealand? From whose POV? Do you try and adapt yourself to a received conception of British civilisation? What if it seems to have little application or benefit in this land, let alone in you? Or do you accept and adapt yourself to the demands of the New Zealand landscape and your own feelings, and in doing so open yourself up either to a better future than you could otherwise have hoped for, or risk impulsive savagery? The great thing here is that there’s a dilemma – you’re potentially damned if you do or if you don’t.
 
So there’s a path to go down – but next question is, what background do they play against?
 
I’ve called my play The Alternative Land of the Moa – so far I like that as a provocation – what was going on when the main events were happening? How could my characters be associated with that? How are the environmental stakes pushing them to the edge of propriety and impropriety? What can they win? How can they lose?