Online exclusive
Why I Made is a fortnightly feature in which artists and writers share the behind-the-scenes stories of their creations with listener.co.nz. Here, Oscar Kightley talks about writing the play Dawn Raids and how job losses contributed to him becoming a playwright.
Oscar Kightley wasn’t even 30 when he changed the face of New Zealand theatre forever. Visceral, urgent and confronting, his play Dawn Raids announced to audiences – many fed on a diet of Brit-lite theatre – that there was a new generation of theatre-makers in Aotearoa who would tell their stories their way.
The first play Kightley had written without a collaborator, Dawn Raids threw a spotlight on the trauma everyday Kiwi families experienced in the 1970s when NZ governments went hunting for illegal immigrants, targeting Pasifika people, who were often pulled from their beds.
It was produced and performed by Pacific Underground, founded by a collective of Pasifika performers and musicians based in Christchurch. That collective, Pacific Underground, is now the country’s longest-running Pasifika performing arts organisation. It is holding a reading of Dawn Raids at Word Christchurch later this month.
Why did you write Dawn Raids?
OK: The Dawn Raids were such a big and awful thing that happened to our community, and it was done by the NZ government. As a young Samoan, I had heard about them [the raids] as I was growing up but there wasn’t really anything about them. There were no books, no television documentaries being made. There were no stories about them, so I was looking around for a subject to write a play about, and this had been on my mind since I was a kid.
I wrote it in 1997/98, and Pacific Underground performed it in 1998. It’s the only play I’ve written by myself. Before then, I’d written a couple of plays with Simon Small, who was also in Pacific Underground, and A Frigate Bird Sings with Dave Fane.
You were a journalist before you started writing plays. How did you make that switch?
OK: I got made redundant in 1990 in the first round of redundancies from the Auckland Star. I thought it was going to be my job for life because that’s the way things were back then. We’d just moved to a new building and new technology was being introduced. I kind of thought I might get made redundant because I’d been told off by then editor Judy McGregor, so I went for a job interview at Independent Radio News.
When I got back, my colleagues were outside with placards protesting but I went inside and tried to log on to my computer. I’d been locked out and that’s how I found I was one of those made redundant. I did go to work for IRN, too, but ended getting made redundant again.
After a couple of months of being unemployed, I got a job in TV3′s publicity department but I’d also heard about a new TV show being made for teenagers called Life in the Fridge Exists. I harboured ambitions of being on television, but I’d never done it before and I’d never been to the South Island, where Life in the Fridge Exists was being made, so I went to talk to the head of kids’ programming at TV3.
I only went to ask about whether he thought I should audition, but because it was being made by an independent company he thought I’d “steal” all TV3′s secrets so I was marched out of the publicity department by security, with my stuff in a box! TV3 had only just started then, it was incredibly competitive, and people were a little bit paranoid… I did get the TV job, though.
How did you feel about moving to Christchurch?
OK: I drove down in my Valiant, caught the Cook Strait ferry and stopped in a place called Ward to get petrol. The lady at the petrol station, and she wasn’t trying to be rude or racist, innocently said to me, “You’re not from around here, are you?” and that’s when I knew I was in quite a different place.
The weather in Christchurch was freezing and for the first time in my life, I saw skinheads brazenly walking around. For a year, I didn’t unpack all the clothes from my suitcase. I thought I would leave quite soon after I got there, so I didn’t unpack.
But you stayed for a few years?
OK: Yes, I worked on Life in the Fridge Exists and I thought television was going to be my new job for life. But it lasted six months and I got made redundant again. I got a job DJing in a bar and met some good people who were doing a Polynesian performing arts course, but it mainly centred around Māori. We all got to talking and decided to start our own thing because we were all Pacific Islanders, and it didn’t feel right to do Māori shows when we weren’t Māori. That became Pacific Underground.
So, four jobs and three redundancies and one sacking - what did that teach you about the world of work?
OK: Yes, it all happened from when I was 20-21 years old, so it was a real introduction to how certain types of jobs don’t always last for long so it’s best not to get too attached or you could really get depressed. I developed a freelancing mindset, though.
Still, it must have taught you a lot about being resilient?
OK: I’d been resilient since childhood [Kightley left Samoa aged 4 to live with relatives in Auckland after his father died]. When I started getting jobs in offices in the central city, I thought I was very lucky because my entire experience before was seeing my relatives march off to factory jobs. I never took anything for granted, so when the “cool” jobs started disappearing, I wasn’t too down on myself. I just figured I would have to try and do other stuff.
You’ve talked about how your journalism training helped in the writing of Dawn Raids, how so?
OK: I used the research skills I learned doing journalism and spent a year talking to people. I knew I didn’t want to just sit at a desk and make stuff up, so I spent a year talking to all kinds of people who were there involved, from the matriarchal Samoan woman who ran social programmes to former members of the Polynesian Panthers about their activism. I spoke to church ministers who were in charge of churches in central Auckland and who were sometimes called on by police to act as mediators. I spoke to academics and writers; I talked with a Samoan police officer who was a young constable during the 1970s and took part in the Dawn Raids.
I also knew that I wanted to write about it through a family’s experience rather than set in Muldoon’s office [Robert Muldoon, NZ prime minister through the peak of the Dawn Raids]. I wanted to write about how it impacted on families rather than have it be about the machinations and political goings on that led to the raids.
Why did you decide to do it like that?
OK: Because were still building the Pacific audience for theatre and I thought that’s what our community would rather see. They’d want to see something about themselves. That was always our thing with Pacific Underground – to write stories about what was happening – had happened to our community so they could come to the theatre, see a story in a safe place and not be too traumatised, maybe even have a laugh in the dark.
I was surprised when I first saw it and realised how big a topic it was. I think if I tried to write it now, in my 50s, I might have found it too difficult and put it in the too-hard basket because it was too big a topic to tackle. I guess that’s the invincibility of youth, you just climb into something. You get a bit more frightened as you get older.
What are you doing now?
OK: I’m working on a number of writing projects, I’m on the Henderson-Massey Community Board of Auckland Council, and I work a couple of days a week with an NGO called The Cause Collective in South Auckland.
Back when I was reporting on local government, I always liked that there were – are – people from the community who put themselves forward to help their communities. I enjoy it, and I enjoy being able to provide a service to my community in this way.
Pacific Underground & Auckland Theatre Company take Dawn Raids to Wellington’s Opera House on 23, October, 7.30pm and 24 October, 11am & 7.30pm.
