Abstract
The Deerstalkers’ Ball is a play about a world in transition. It is an observation of the changes that have taken place in New Zealand’s rural south over the past twenty years, largely as a result of the increasing dominance of the dairying industry. The main narrative is set over two months in 1993 and tells the story of a sheep-farming family who will eventually be ‘displaced’ by the new order. It is set against the backdrop of preparations for a ball – a tradition that will soon be consigned to the past.
While there are serious themes at the heart of the play, its overall tone is intended to be comic. Indeed, the most significant challenge in writing the play was achieving a successful balance between comedy and pathos. The exegesis in this thesis focuses principally on this issue, using the development of The Deerstalkers’ Ball as an opportunity to explore the sub-genre of what might be called ‘serious comedy’ – an approach typified by Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country, Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and plays by writers who have followed in their footsteps.
The exegesis sets out to identify and define the characteristics and techniques of serious comedy. In addition to this investigation of tone, it looks at the use of multiple timeframes to make a story set in the recent past relevant to a contemporary audience and the opportunity this creates to balance comedy with pathos. The exegesis also discusses the elliptical nature of dramatic dialogue and the value of understatement in creating comic and dramatic effects and provides an extended discussion of the social and political background and themes of The Deerstalkers’ Ball.