Downstage
Nov 11-Dec 16 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

ONE OF THE most unhappy moments in the life of an audience member is when she realises that she is in fact an audience member, and she is watching a play. At least, this is an unhappy moment if she is brought to the realisation not through witty self-referential dialogue, or an engagement of cast with audience, but through boredom. She realises a certain drama is being enacted on the stage before her, and it seems far away and irrelevant, like television. There are many other viewers around who are sighing, yawning and/or laughing drunkenly. She wonders whether the party she is going to afterward will be much fun. The play unfolding on stage becomes almost a distraction to these thoughts.

Downstage
Oct 18-Nov 4 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

Nga Tangata Toa is a Viking tragedy recreated in the world of Mãori. Playwright Hone Kouka, struck by the similarities between the Vikings and Mãori, has reworked Henrik Ibsen’s play The Vikings of Helgeland into a twentieth century Aotearoan tragedy. In Ibsen’s play Kouka saw the opportunity to bring to the stage Mãori characters never before seen in mainstream theatre. For this reason Nga Tangata Toa certainly has a unique poignancy. Its characters are both stereotypical and of-their-own-genre. Its dark and archaically vengeful narrative has classical undertones that mark it as different from traditional Mãori folklore.

Downstage
November 4, 9am – 4.30pm

‘WHAT IS the future of Mãori theatre in Aotearoa, New Zealand?’ asks leading Mãori theatre collective, Taki Rua. Is it to have a national Mãori theatre? An iwi-based theatre? A drama school like Toi Whakaari where students korero Te Reo? And, has the integration of Mãori playwrights into the mainstream been at the expense of political, indigenous theatre? (Well, that particular issue isn’t listed in the programme, but let’s hope it’s included in the discussion).