Victor Rodger: Why theatre should disturb your comfort zone

In the world of creative theatre, award-winning playwright Victor Rodger ONZM is a man on a mission to make sure nobody stays in their comfort zone for long.

Whether he is writing plays that peel back the layers of identity or mentoring the next wave of Pacific playwrights, Rodger’s mantra comes from a famous quote attributed to Mexican poet Cesar A. Cruz.

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. So I’m all about disturbing and comforting, depending on which group you’re in,” Rodger tells PMN News.

Rodger has taken that same boundary-pushing energy to Red Phone, an interactive experience by Canadian interdisciplinary theatre company Boca del Lupo, that has toured Canada, Norway, and Latin America.

Part theatre and part social experiment, Red Phone is a phone booth installation where audience members pick up a vintage red telephone. On the other end is another person, between them sits a teleprompter loaded with a collection of scripts, including one by Rodger.

“There's some pretty full on swearing in this piece, which is typical for my writing,” he says. “But I think some people enjoy the chance of trying it on for size, because they don't use it in their real life.”

Red Phone is described as being able to “create small, unforgettable moments” between ordinary people as they navigate a scripted conversation without knowing what the other person will say.

Rodger recounts taking a friend to the experience, “That was really interesting, because she came out of it, and she was going, ‘Oh my god, my heart's beating’.

“Because it’s quite intense at the end, and I loved the reaction that she had.”

PANNZ Arts Market Pasifika Scholarship recipients. Photo/Facebook

Alongside prominent Sāmoan arts director and producer arts festival director Tanya Muagututi'a, Rodger shoulder-tapped six recipients for this year’s PANNZ (Performing Arts Network NZ) and Creative NZ’s Pacific scholarship to attend the Arts Market held in Tāmaki Makaurau.

This year’s scholarships went to actor Seiyan Thompson-Tonga, dance practitioner, creative director, and cultural facilitator Vaopule ‘Pule’ Faatali Taulago Siva, dance tutor Summer Lloyd, emerging actor Waikamania Seve, playwright, poet, and researcher Tūī Matelau, and writer and performer Hibiscus Tupua-Wilson.

For emerging creatives with Pacific heritage, where humility is often a valued quality, Rodger has a slightly more radical piece of advice.

“Act like a white man,” he says. A cheeky, pointed nudge to stop apologising for existence.

“As in, just claim the space. Don't do your ‘humble in the shadows’ bit, but just claim your space, hustle, and back yourself.

“Not all young Pasifika practitioners, but some of them, there's a real fear/reluctance to offend family, culture, God. I'm more interested in truth, be it, especially if it's an uncomfortable truth, I think it's very necessary to tell uncomfortable truths in theatre, and humour as well.”

In looking at the current and future landscape of Pacific theatre, Rodger is betting on the next generation to go even further and have the guts to provoke.

“I'm always delighted when I come across young practitioners who are doing stuff that not everybody will be able to handle.”

Rodger isn’t showing any signs of slowing down with projects developing across television, film, and fiction, as well as a theatre show set to premiere in 2026 called, The Boy from Vaiala.

Red Phone will be at Aotea Centre, in the Circle Foyer on Level 3 until 8 March. Free entry and the experience lasts eight to 15 minutes long.