.co.nz: A delightful and remarkably thoughtful Matariki offering

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

.co.nz

By Mark Wilson

A Chocolate and Carnage production

Pumphouse Amphitheatre

Takapuna

With

Mark Wilson, Āria  Harrison-Sparke, Jordan Henare and Awatea Timothy

Dir/SM Meg Andrews

Prod Coord Lauren Wilson

Des Julia Rutherford

Until 15 July

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

Delightfully Thoughtful

Although billed as Absurdist Theatre, I found this delightful and remarkably thoughtful Matariki offering more an exploration of an Aotearoa grappling with its own social maturation.  Both Māori  and Pakeha.

As Mark Wilson has observed ‘there are no neatly bound beginnings, middles, and ends … our stories are only woven in complexities which are in never-ending jagged, imperfect circles’.  Yes, he addresses the Pleiades.  Yes, Ngā Mata o te Ariki Tāwhirimātea remain a catalyst.  But.co.nz quickly moves to the individual and to different appreciations, understandings and celebrations of mātauranga and knowledge of Māori.  Or don’t.  It is expressed in both internalised terms –  iwi, hapu and whanau – within the broader community, and in the perceptions of others.

.co.nz kicks off in a somewhat disorganised on-line distribution centre that sells mobile phones.  It subsequently returns to this at various stages during the performance and provides the continuity from which everything spins almost as a stream of consciousness.  A dream perhaps, but this did not strike me as absurd at all. 

Initially an archetypal customer complains – not in person, mind you, only via email – because the centre will be closed for ‘some Māori  holiday’ and he can’t get instant service.  Customer ‘Darren’ then goes on to quickly abuse the business and everyone in it, particularly staff who can’t or won’t speak ‘proper’ English, insisting they should be replaced by ‘ordinary’ kiwis that he can understand.  Which only serves to result in peals of laughter at his own unwitting use of a te reo Māori word. 

Fairly unexpectedly, this leads almost immediately to why different people hold different views of the maori-pakeha divide, and how different communication forms have quickly led to ever-narrowing viewpoints of just about everything.  Social media take a bow.  Full marks to Mark Wilson for getting this out of the way up front and for moving fairly swiftly to what this play is really about.

His own words from the stage, wrapped in a very warm blanket on a very cold evening, have an almost a monosyllabic inanity that becomes clearer as things unpack.  At times his culture is confused, at others merely bemused.  While attending an urban secondary school, for example, his character TJ enrols for kapa haka but finds himself isolated and confused – the only other kapa haka takers being a Korean boy and four girls.  Not dissimilarly Āria Harrison-Sparke’s T-Dub recalls being rejected by both her Pakeha mother and her Māori father.  Weaving to and fro between them, and occasionally holding central focus himself, Jordan Henare (Mā) remains a commanding figure on stage, mostly in control of his own perceptions and demonstrating his strength at all times – perhaps over so at times.  While Awatea Timothy provides a closing speech almost as a summation of what has gone before, in addition to providing some gentle music that had the audience quietly hum-singing along pre-show.

The vast majority of new playwrights aim to educate and inspire.  Some become so enmeshed in this that they become didactic and even forget the third element – providing intelligent entertainment for their audience.  Mark Wilson does so or, as he would put it, by absorbing lessons from Te korekore, te whaiao and te ao māra (past, present and future) and then knowing how to sift out the weeds may even lead to the ultimate evolution of a universal Ngati Matariki.

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