Way out for the 'Warriors'

By GREG DIXON

It was something like a cultural earthquake. When Alan Duff's 1990 novel Once Were Warriors found its way on to the big screen a decade ago it was - for many middle class New Zealanders anyway - like a fault line had ripped open to reveal something ugly which had been out of sight.

Family violence, the trials of a Maori underclass and the brutality of gang culture - while hardly unknown - had never been portrayed with such an unflinching eye for its unpleasant detail on our screens.

Fiction, it seemed, had helped us to understand reality and in doing so Once Were Warriors became a cultural landmark: The film went on to become one of our most successful, grossing more than $6 million in New Zealand. The book and film's anti-hero, Jake "The Muss" Heke, became a sort of infamous icon. And the title has become shorthand for domestic violence and lives caught in the poverty trap.

And there, you might think, it ended. But a decade on the best-selling book that became a milestone film has gone on to become something rather unexpected: a musical.

While the genre is hardly short of hard stories set to music - Porgy And Bess and West Side Story are two - some have wondered what Once Were Warriors: The Musical can add, a decade on, to the impact of book and film.

Director Jim Moriarty, a gruff but friendly type, says the musical, financed by Christchurch businessman Anthony Runacres, has certainly taken a long time to go from idea to stage.

It took some seven years from Runacres optioning the rights until the final production, with its music by Christchurch composer Richard Marrett, lyrics by Jamie Burgess and a script from Maori playwright Riwia Brown.

"I don't know why [it took so long]," Moriarty says. "Maybe people thought it was too wacky an idea, especially following on from the power impact of the film."

But the veteran Maori writer-actor-director says Once Were Warriors the musical, though based on the book, offers a different outlook. While the book and the film left many questions in their bleak conclusions, the musical seeks a way out for the Hekes.

"The thing for me was, what could we do that was different from the book or the film? Everyone knows there's a problem in the country [with family violence]. So it wasn't just about doing the problem all over again. I was interested in the solution, the whole business of restoration. What does a family do to get out of the shit?

"This play shows there's a pathway out of the cycle of violence. It does profoundly more so than the book or the film did. I believe it's a much more rounded version of Once Were Warriors than the film."

To this end, Moriarty is also using the production, which had its New Zealand and world premiere in Christchurch last month, to campaign against smacking. He wants the law that allows parents to hit their children - Section 59 of the Crimes Act - to be changed.

There will be a petition available for signing when the show begins its three-week Auckland run at the St James Theatre on Saturday. But Moriarty's Once Were Warriors is being even more proactive in changing lives. While the core cast - including singer Tina Cross as Beth Heke - have professional stage experience, the 25-strong chorus of young people, who sing and perform kapa haka, come from the Te Rakau Hua O Te Wao Tapu Trust. The charitable organisation, which has performed in schools, marae, remand centres and prisons, was set up by Moriarty to help those from homes like the Hekes'.

So the play about a way out has, in part, become a way out too.

"They're getting an education," says Moriarty of his young cast, "and they're getting this wonderful opportunity. They're bloody grateful."

And so, too, is Cross, who plays a Maori for the first time in her stage career. Although she initially turned down the role because of family commitments, she says doing the musical has helped her tap into her culture.

"To my mind, the average Kiwi didn't perceive me as being this type of performer.

"My career has been varied from recording to television and cabaret. I don't like the term "light entertainment", but that's what I came through as a young performer.

"So here was my first chance to sink my teeth into something that was part of my own heritage. It was also something, dare I say it, that I felt I'd been reasonably ignorant about."

There have been mixed reviews from the musical's southern dates in Christchurch and Wellington. The Listener's review of the opening night in Christchurch suggested that the singing and dancing softens the force and intensity of a story that needs to be uncompromising in its telling. However, a critic writing in the National Business Review calls it a tight, dynamic, clear and purposeful show with telling emotional depth.

From the sublime to the ridiculous is how Moriarty describes the critical reaction, but he's grown to expect that.

"I've been around 35 years in the New Zealand theatre scene and you know some people are going to love your work and some people are going to hate it," he says.

"Of course in the back of my mind [when I decided to direct it] was that it's a new New Zealand work, that's a bloody musical drama bearing this brand called Once Were Warriors. I knew the knives were going to be out. And sure enough ... some people absolutely love it and some people think it's a load of old crock. Good, that's what it's about."

Performance

* What: Once Were Warriors

* Where: St James Theatre

* Where: From Saturday April 10 to Wed April 28

* Tickets: $39 to $69.50 from Ticketek