Literature and Politics

Pitcairn is a tiny island crowded with history: mutiny, murder, jealousy, racism, revenge, sexual depravity, drunkenness, massacre, polygamy, insanity, suicide, female armed resistance, and total conversion to Old Testament Christianity - all this within ten years of The Bounty’s arrival in 1790.  Two hundred years later, an investigation into allegations of sexual assault by a visiting New Zealander opened up Operation Unique, by the end of which eight Pitcairn men were variously convicted of rape and indecent assault against young girls, some offences dating back decades.  Indications are that such offending had been widespread for generations.  The question asked worldwide – “how could this happen without anyone stopping it?”

My forthcoming stage play, Pitcairn, aims to provide some answers.  A primary source is Our Pitcairn Story, written by my grandmother, New Zealander Jane Moverley in the 1950s, but not published until 2007.  This document was Jane’s last resort in trying to stop the domestic violence and child-rape she had discovered on Pitcairn while living there from 1948 – 51: the British Government having dismissed all her other appeals.  Similarly, Britain’s Western Pacific High Commission rubbished a detailed report about Pitcairn’s ills submitted by Jane’s husband, Albert Moverley, at the end of his employment as school teacher and Government Auditor on the Island.

My paper for the Conference will discuss my decisions (as a playwright) regarding the representation of historical and twentieth century politics on Pitcairn, and Britain’s political expedience in ignoring the needs of its smallest colony.  I will also explore the myths about Pitcairn disseminated by prior literary texts set on the Island, such as Charles Nordhoff’s and James Norman Hall’s Pitcairn’s Island (1935) Diana Souhami’s Coconut Chaos (2007), and travel writing like Dea Birkett’s Serpent in Paradise (1997).

An award winning playwright and theatre director, Christina Stachurski has been involved in theatre from an early age, also as an actor, designer and producer. Her M.A. is in New Zealand drama and her doctorate in New Zealand fiction focuses upon issues of ethnic identity.