Water onstage is not unheard of in theatre, but it’s definitely one of the “big three no-no’s” according to producer Charlie Underhill, along with soil and fire. Water adds a whole lot of considerations around health and safety, stage management and technical logistics. But if used well, it can also add a really powerful texture and dimension to the staging and story. That’s exactly what Flyleaf Theatre Company is trying to achieve with their ambitious new set for their current production Enemy of the People.
Theatre-maker and actor Aaron Richardson describes himself as a reluctant set designer and builder. “It's really just been a function of necessity with all of the shows that I've been involved in and created… You can get heaps of people who want to be actors – harder to find people who want to build that set”. Aaron designed the set for Flyleaf’s previous show Saint Joan in 2025, but for this particular one, he’s got a mate to help him out.
Luka Hayward is a full-time mechatronics engineer currently working for Fisher & Paykel Healthcare (and no, he does not get discounts on appliances). He is also an appreciator of the arts, thanks to his cousin, Charlie, who has been taking him to shows at Basement and beyond since he was 18. When Aaron and director Grace Augustine sheepishly proposed the idea of leaking water onstage, Charlie knew just the guy to help them out.
Over the last four months, Luka and Aaron have been meeting up for design chats, and more recently, using Luka’s car port as a workshop to test and build the set. They even spoke to Aotearoa’s father of set design, John Verryt, for some advice. He designed Auckland Theatre Company’s 2023 production of King Lear, which featured a rain and drainage system for the dramatic storm scene in Act 3. It’s needless to say that ATC and Flyleaf are working with very different budgets. So how does an unfunded independent theatre company incorporate water leaking onto their stage? And importantly, why put themselves through one of the big no-no’s?
Flyleaf Theatre Company’s kaupapa is to bring classic texts to contemporary audiences. Especially those that still have lots to say about current issues. Their last production, an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, commented on the treatment of women in power.
This time, the company is throwing light on Aotearoa’s water pollution and water care issues with Henrik Ibsen’s Enemy of the People (1883). For those who aren’t familiar, Enemy is about a medical officer, Dr. Thomas Stockmann, who discovers the water in his small town is contaminated. However, his truth comes at a price, when those in power, including his brother, try not only to discredit him – but to crush him.
For Aaron, adapting Ibsen’s drama to contemporary Aotearoa made perfect sense. We’ve had our fair share of water issues, thanks to intensive farming and also failing watercare infrastructure. Remember the 2016 Havelock North outbreak? Some 5,500 of the town’s 14,000 residents were estimated to become ill from the drinking water due to heavy rainfall which washed sheep feces into the water. More recently, the ongoing nitrate contamination problem in groundwater in Canterbury.
The set consists of a network of rusty old pipes suspended from the rig, which over the course of the play will start to leak, and leak, and leak. For Aaron, this accelerating leakage within the set is a physical metaphor for Aotearoa’s failing water infrastructure which is making people sick. For my fellow friends who like to sit in the front row, rest assured there is no splash zone. Each leak will be contained by buckets, placed by the actors as they appear. This is a nice metaphor for how we often fail to treat the actual root of the problem. Not to mention, it’ll add a fun texture to the sound design.
To make the leaks happen, Luka and Aaron are using a combination of hoses, irrigation pipes, and drippers which are small devices designed to release water slowly. These will be connected to mains water. During the show, this’ll all be controlled backstage by the stage manager. This is a system which they found on YouTube during research, but figuring out how to trigger and control the rate of flow of a leak takes quite a bit of expert knowledge. Or at least somebody with the technical skills and penchant for solving engineering problems, like Luka.
“It's actually quite hard to get the drip rate that we want without causing leaks in other places… it’s a balancing act” says Luka. It’s all to do with pressure and flow, as Luka enthusiastically (and patiently) explained to me. Too much pressure and water will go everywhere. But if you restrict the pressure too much, your leak will flop. For my science geeks out there, check out Bernoulli’s principle, which describes how pressure and flow have an inverse relationship. To find that sweet spot, they will need to tweak both the entry and exit point for each leakage point.
Thankfully Luka and Aaron have been able to do lots of tests both at Luka’s flat and at Q Theatre. But there was still a lot of fine-tuning to do once they packed into the Loft. But Luka was up for the challenge “It's been really cool to do a project that is just fun from start to finish.” He has already got his next set building job lined up for the Basement.
This all goes to show that people are our greatest resource when it comes to making theatre. I admire how Flyleaf Theatre Company didn’t shy away from realising their ambitious set design. Instead they focussed on bringing the right people with the right skills on board the team, however unlikely the collaboration might seem at first. The right people can be found anywhere.
An Enemy of the People, presented by Flyleaf Theatre Company with Q Season Support, at Q Loft, 12-22 August.
