Auckland Arts Festival: Shared thread in two distinct tales

Hikoi follows a family trying to cope with the social changes of the 1970s and 80s. Photo / John McDermott

Inspired by personal events, local playwrights tell stories of our history

Hikoi and The Mooncake and the Kumara, two home-grown plays in the Auckland Arts Festival, are set in different eras and tell markedly different stories but there are shared threads in their creation. Both are by first-time playwrights inspired by personal family events and a desire to give voice to characters often missing from the mainstream.

Thanks to being picked up by the AAF, both scripts have enjoyed a more lengthy development which Nancy Brunning and Mei-Lin Te Puea Hansen say has made their plays - both of which have already won awards - stronger.

Hikoi, by Wellington-based actor Brunning, opens first. She says questions about her mother, who died when Brunning was 10, made her think about the role of language in keeping traditions alive. "Mum was a fluent te reo speaker, it was the language she was most comfortable with but she never spoke it at home. As a child, she had been beaten for doing so. People say, 'Everyone was disciplined back then' but this wasn't being disciplined, this was being beaten.

"I also thought a lot about the way we were brought up and the things we were told to do, or not to do, and then I asked my brothers and sisters - there are six of us - to write down what they thought being Maori was all about. The responses were so varied, you'd have thought they were coming from people raised in separate families."

Brunning says responses ran the gamut from the provocative - "being Maori is all about gangs and violence" - to the romantic where to be Maori meant living on a marae and growing one's own food. Brunning says none of them realised their upbringings were steeped in tikanga Maori. "It had never been explained to us in our own language."

Her concern about language was further fuelled by the 2011 Te Reo Mauriora report that concluded that the number of speakers was declining. It said te reo needed to be re-established in the home.

The Mooncake and the Kumara, part of the Arts Festival. Photo / John McDermott

In Hikoi, Brunning looks for answers as to how we got to where we are now by returning to the 1970s and 1980s: the revival of te reo, the land-focused Maori protest movement, with the Bastion Point occupation and 1975 hikoi, the Springbok tour and the Te Maori art exhibition where Maori exhibited Maori art internationally for the first time.

For the fictional Miller whanau at the heart of her play, this rapid change pulls them in different directions. When husband Charlie and wife Nellie, played by real-life couple Kali Kopae and Jamie McCaskill, can't agree whether to fight for what they believe in or forget past grievances, their five teenage children (Aroha White, Kura Forrester, Manuel Solomon, Ngakopa Volkerling and Amanda Noblett) pack their bags and head off looking for answers. Wesley Dowdell plays Charlie's best friend and business partner, Barry.

Hikoi was named co-runner up for Best Play and Best Play by a Maori Playwright at the 2014 Adam NZ Play Awards.

Meanwhile, Te Puea Hansen looked back to the 1920s to tell one of the few stories to be brought to the stage about Maori-Chinese families. Told in English, Maori and Cantonese, The Mooncake and the Kumara is loosely based on her grandparents: her goong-goong (grandfather) from Guangzhou, and nan, Tainui from Waikato.

The two met when they worked on a market garden in Taranaki, fell in love and went on to have 13 children, nine of whom survived to adulthood. But there's another character in the story, a mystery woman, who provides a contrast to life in New Zealand and adds a touch of magical realism to a story replete with myth, fable and history.

"I think it's important to give voice to lots of different people, especially those on the margins. If the main characters are on the margins, then this woman is on the margins of the margin. It's a nice thing for the audience to discover who she is."

Co-written with Te Puea Hansen's cousin Kiel McNaughton, The Mooncake and the Kumara started life in the Asian Tales presentation of plays.

From there, it went on to the 10-minute theatre festival Short + Sweet, where it won Best Drama. Encouraged, Te Puea Hansen took three months off work to develop the script into a full-length play helped by Playmarket which provided her with eight hours of tuition and feedback from writer Stuart Hoar.

Characters were added, certain storylines enhanced and the play workshopped. Te Puea Hansen acknowledges handing the script over to dramaturges, other actors and now director Katie Wolfe was necessary but not easy. A co-production between the AAF and the Oryza Foundation for Asian Performing Arts, Te Puea Hansen says their backing has left her free to concentrate on enhancing the story and meant extra elements, like Maori Chinese music, could be added. She says she was never tempted to direct and was thrilled when Wolfe came on board.

What: Hikoi
Where and when: Rangatira, Q Theatre, March 4-8
What: The Mooncake and the Kumara
Where and when: Loft, Q Theatre; March 5-10