Theatre: Poll Tax descendant presents personal dramas of five characters

The five characters in Ka-Shue (Letters home) are played by Lynda Chanwai-Earle, accompanied by musician Nikau Wi Neera. Photo / Dianna Thomson Photography

Ka-Shue (Letters Home) is an epic story of love, laughter, and loss, spanning 100 years between China and New Zealand through the eyes of a Chinese family struggling to resettle in Aotearoa.

Ka-Shue is a Cantonese phrase for "Home Book" a poetic term covering everything about home, love, and alienation. Life is experienced through the eyes of three generations of the Leung family as they are swept across continents and time: The Second World War, the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, and the infamous buried history of the Poll Tax in New Zealand, £100 levied against Chinese migrants only (1883 to 1944).

The production encompasses a broad sweep of the political events between the two countries as a backdrop for the personal dramas of the five characters played by one actor.

Ka-Shue is a fictionalised account of playwright Lynda Chanwai-Earle's own Chinese family. Photo / Dianna Thomson Photography

Jackie is Eurasian, in her early twenties, naively following her Chinese boyfriend into Beijing on the eve of the Tiananmen Square tragedy. As Jackie writes home to her mother Abbie in Wellington, Abbie recalls growing up as the only coloured child at school, her rebellion against her Chinese community, and her own naïve return to China during the Cultural Revolution, 1974.

Playwright Lynda Chanwai-Earle says: "I am a Poll Tax descendant; my great-grandfather Dong Chanwai arrived in Wellington in 1907. My mother was just a baby when she and my Po-po (maternal grandmother) fled the Sino-Japanese invasion as refugees on board the MS Wanganella bound for Wellington in 1940.

"Close to the bone, Ka-Shue is a fictionalised account of my own Chinese family, the Dong clan of Bak-Chuen, Poon-Yue County, Canton."

Performed by Lynda Chanwai-Earle, accompanied by talented Māori musician Nikau Wi Neera.

"Ka Shue distills complex elements of epic proportions into a potent liqueur that resonates and radiates more with every sip." – John Smythe, Theatreview, 2020

The Thursday 19 performance will also feature the post-show Literary Salon event with guests Lynda Chanwai-Earle and Paula Morris, chaired by Alice Te Punga Somerville.

Ka-Shue (Letters Home), presented by Ice Floe Productions Tapui Ltd, is proud to be part of Hamilton Book Month.

The Details
What: Ka-Shue (Letters home)
When: August 17, 18 (sold out), 19. 6:30pm
Where: Meteor Theatre, Hamilton
Tickets: themeteor.co.nz/event/ka-shue/