Christchurch-based playwright, Victor Rodger, is the 2009 Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence at the University of Canterbury. “I’m the first of Pacific Island descent to have this residency, which is pretty wicked, particularly with me being a Christchurch boy,” he says. Taking his writing from the stage to the page, Victor will use part of his residency to adapt his fourth play, My name is Gary Cooper, into a novel. The comedy-drama was produced by the Auckland Theatre Company in 2007, and starred Robbie Magasiva of Sione’s Wedding fame. It received rave reviews and was described by Metro magazine as “a darkly witty demolition of palagi fantasies about Polynesia”. Victor will work on a couple of other play projects including Village People, a Creative New Zealand commission about four Samoan siblings who each live in a different country and are reunited in Samoa to watch the youngest become a matai (chief). Being of Samoan and Scottish descent, Victor says the themes of race, racism, race relations and identity inspire most of his work. His first play Sons won four Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards in 1998, including most outstanding new writer and most outstanding new New Zealand play. In 2001, he won the Sunday Star-Times Bruce Mason Playwriting Award. Since 2000 he has been a storyliner and now dialogue writer for the long-running television soap opera, Shortland Street, a “bread and butter” job which he says helps him “flex (his) writing muscles” and was a great way to pay off his credit card.
Victor Rodger. (Image courtesy of the University of Canterbury)
