KEY POINTS:
Playwright Jason Greenwood found creative inspiration for his play Lena close to home.
Part way through a master's degree in creative and performing arts at Auckland University, Greenwood was struggling to find new story ideas for his weekly course work. Listening to his elderly mother's stories about Samoa,
he realised he had the best material.
"My mother had a stroke and, because I didn't have a family or any dependents, I decided to give up my job and look after her," he says. "She was talking more and more clearly about her early years in Samoa. It was like a light bulb going on in my head. I thought, 'I'll tell her story'."
The result is Lena, the first play Greenwood has had produced and one that has been five years in the crafting.
He says the play, written as a tribute to his mother, who died last year at 92, is a story people of any culture will relate to.
"While she never got to see it performed, she knew I was writing it. She would say, 'Oh, you can't put that in,' but I knew she secretly loved the idea as much as she would protest."
Set in Samoa in 1947, leading up to the island nation's independence, Lena explores the conflict between traditional values and modernity through the story of an Afakasi (mixed race) family torn apart by a row over who should control the family plantation.
Lena is an educated woman who cannot understand why her Mama stays loyal to her troublesome half-brother, Viliamu.
Even when Viliamu commits a vicious crime, it is not enough for Mama to turn her son away. As the family feud grows more bitter, an entire community is forced to take sides.
Olivia Muliaumasealii, who plays Lena, was drawn to the script because of its realistic depictions of women.
"The portrayal of the different relationships women have - be it with a mother, a husband or religion - and how in a humble but strong way they hold families together, was so accurately written," she says.
"I think that is because Jason looked after his mother when she got sick and it takes a special kind of man to do that. He has gained an understanding of women's roles within the culture."
Greenwood says his family is filled with strong matriarchal role models and, while he moved to New Zealand in 1955 when he was eight, he has retained memories of his early years in Samoa. "My grandmother lived with us - except when she and my mother fought. Then she would move in with my uncle."
Lena is produced by Pacific Theatre, founded by Justine Simei-Barton in 1987 to encourage the development of Pacific voices in the performing arts. After a string of stage productions in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Simei-Barton has spent the past decade concentrating on film and television projects. She says the Lena script was so powerful she wanted to return to live theatre.
"I lost both of my parents when I was quite young but I remember their stories and the images of Samoa those stories created for me. I thought, if I am craving for this, undoubtedly there are other young people who miss the stories and want them back. Each year, parents pass away and you can never get their stories back.
"They are stories that need to be told and heard. I know there is no one better to do this than us Samoans. I didn't want Lena to be handed over to a white mainstream established theatre company that will try to tell us how to be Polynesian."
Simei-Barton said a Samoan cultural renaissance is underway so finding talented and experienced Pacific actors was not hard.
The cast includes Nora Aati, 22, who graduated from Unitec last year. She appeared in the solo show Mapaki earlier this year and finished work on the Auckland Theatre Company's My Name is Gary Cooper a week before the Lena rehearsals started.
She says Lena is teaching her more about her Samoan heritage. "I go home and sing the traditional songs and my mum joins in. It's exciting that I can be part of telling stories to a new generation."
Aleni Tufuga, Mark Webley, Pule Simei-Afamasaga and Alvin Fitisemanu round out the cast while Greenwood also makes an appearance.
* Lena is at the Herald Theatre from November 3 - 10
