Jamie McCaskill and Natano Keni in Manawa. Photo / Supplied
Playwright Jamie McCaskill, who impressed a couple of years ago as co-writer of He Reo Aroha, returns with a new play that convincingly establishes him as a major talent - both as a writer and performer.
Manawa delivers a refreshing blast of humour that is used to reveal some uncomfortable
truths about the judicial system and contemporary Maori politics.
The down-to-earth style of comedy recalls the brilliance of Billy T. James with the same mix of hard-case deadpan, a wildly exuberant sense of the absurd and the fearlessly satirical attitude that comes from perceptive observations of real people.
The play throws together an unlikely but entirely believable odd couple as a Maori recidivist shares a prison cell with a fresh-from-the-islands Samoan who is being set up as the scapegoat for a dodgy attempt to manipulate Treaty claims on Department of Conservation land.
The show had the Basement Theatre rocking with laughter and revealed ironic shades of grey in areas more commonly delineated in the harsh black and white of identity politics.
