Review: Restaged Dawn Raids sets bar for unapologetically brown stories

Gabrielle Solomona plays Fuarosa and Michael Falesiu plays Sione. Photo / Andi Crown

It's been 25 years since Oscar Kightley and the theatre collective Pacific Underground first staged Dawn Raids, but the play has taken on new meaning a year after Jacinda Ardern formally apologised for the Government's mistreatment of Pasifika communities in the 1970s.

After the Prime Minister's apology, Auckland Theatre Company teamed up with Pacific Underground to restage the play for a new generation.

As a member of that new generation, and also as an urban Samoan and Māori with family who lived through that era, the play was beautiful yet painful to watch.

In the days after I saw it, I tried not to think about it too much because of the emotions it stirred. But Dawn Raids opened a wound in me I was aware of but didn't realise how deep the scar ran.

The story follows Sione (Michael Falesiu) and his family's experience in 1973 central Auckland during the Dawn Raid era.

The family harbour Sione's fiancee Fuarosa (Gabrielle Solomona), an overstayer, to the dismay of his father Mose (Lauie Tofa) who supports the raids and scorns overstayers.

Talia-Rae Mavaega appears as the daughter Teresa in the play: Dawn Raids. Photo / Andi Crown

Mose's wife To'aga (Bella Kalolo-Suraj) tries to keep her family together, but daughter Teresa (Talia-Rae Mavaega) upends this through her activism opposing the racial injustices against Pasifika.

Through their story and the family's struggles, playwright Kightley explores the conflicts between fa'asamoa (the Samoan way) and NZ's Pākehā-dominated culture, between traditional Samoan identity and urban Pasifika identities and then how these conflicts interact with the trauma Pasifika suffered by seeing and experiencing authoritative abuse.

This experience made a lot of Pasifika develop coping mechanisms by accepting assimilation, abandoning cultural integrity and settling deeply into a state of denial of racial injustice occurring against them.

Tofa elegantly portrays this assimilation through his performance of the hyper-masculine behaviours of the first-generation immigrant Samoan father, Mose - yet he was more than capable of exhibiting Mose's nuanced vulnerabilities.

The conflict within a conflict

Steve - a fellow Samoan - is a friend of Mose's and is a cop. He is played by Italia Hunt and presents the conflict of a Samoan advocating for an unjust system that compromises his morals.

Hunt plays this out perfectly and as you see his shame and stress accumulate, he cracks under the pressure.

Solomona communicates Fuarosa's character through physicality brilliantly - from her constant upright posture to the moments she physically folds inwards, trying to make herself as small as possible to avoid disturbing the home she's a guest in.

Another form of respect in fa'asamoa.

Falesiu embodies Sione as the second-generation immigrant fascinated with the western sphere. He performs Elvis' iconic dances with recognisable boisterous charm, yet can deliver Sione's pain through sombre moments of reprieve.

Mavaega plays the aiga's outspoken daughter dutifully; as she dominates the spaces with a presence that screams she'll fight for her kaupapa relentlessly - yet to her or her family's avail.

The family needs her - not just to speak up, but also as the person and only daughter who comforts her parents at separate breaking points.

Dawn Raids staged by the Auckland Theatre Company at the ASB Waterfront Theatre. Photo / Andi Crown

What ties the family together is their mother: To'aga. Kalolo-Suraj exudes the intricate behaviours of her role; expertly conveying Toa'ga's disagreement to Mose's decisions for the family through body language - but holds silence, as typical of Pasefika parental structures.

Assistant director Jake Tupu, who plays Teresa's closest friend Bene, brings a youthful understanding of fa'asamoa that balances his and Teresa's friendship.

'Watching your elders suffering is painful'

Tupu nails his role; acting as the gentle voice of rationale for Teresa's unreasonable moments - yet switching when he knows to stand staunch in his ideologies that clash with her more western ones.

Huge praise should also go to Dawn Raids co-directors Troy Tu'ua and Tanya Muagututi'a, who worked with all the performers to direct such a close-to-home and authentic representation of our elders.

And authenticity is a powerful asset. Dawn Raids avoids both the modernised slang and Pākehā-centric B plot that diluted the impact of last year's The Panthers mini-series from TVNZ.

This is an unapologetically brown story, exclusively centred on brown people - just as it should.

Watching a close interpretation of your elders' suffering is painful; especially since they are the figures that care, love, protect and lead us.

However, Dawn Raids is an essential experience, an authentic retelling of what my elders went through.

For anyone who spent last year wondering what the Dawn Raids were or why an apology was needed, this play should be essential viewing for all audience - especially Pasifika, who can take comfort in knowing ATC, Pacific Underground and Kightley have delivered a work that does our stories justice.

Education on this era is significant. But educating it through an emotional human connection is more powerful and is exactly what Dawn Raids has done.

• Dawn Raids is on at the ASB Waterfront Theatre until September 3.