June 26, 2012

Brown Ink Playreading Tour 

CELEBRATE MATARIKI WITH A STORY BOTH NEW AND OLD, REMEMBERED AND FORGOTTEN, HEARTBREAKING AND HOPEFUL.  

The rise of the star cluster MATARIKI this month marks the Maori New Year – an event that is a time to come together and share skills, achievements, histories and stories.

This Matariki, Playmarket and Te Papa Tongarewa have joined together to bring you Raw Men by Whiti Hereaka.

Whiti Hereaka’s stageplay, inspired by Rowley Habib’s poem, brings a human face to the generational effects of war, and obligation, and the misunderstood silence that grew between fathers and sons post-war.

“I kept thinking on the proverb,” says Hereaka, “that the father’s sins are visited on the son. Except, I wanted to invert that and make it the father’s virtues. And, yes, some of the sins are more visible but by the end I want people to think that that whole generation’s sacrifice, meant that his grandson could go to university, participate in society and be heard.”

Whiti is a playwright, novelist, screenwriter and a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand. Her play Te Kaupoi won the 2010 Playmarket Adam NZ Play Award – Best Play by a Maori Playwright and Rona and Rabbit onthe Moon was shortlisted for the same prize in 2011. Her first novel The Graphologist’s Apprentice was published in 2010 and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers First Book awards.

The play is being presented in a rehearsed reading at Te Papa Marae, as part of Playmarket’s Brown Ink programme and the readings are open to the public for koha entry.

Join us this Matariki and share in this story of our past and our hopes for the future.

RAW MEN
By Whiti Hereaka (Ngati Tuwharetoa, Te Arawa)

Created with Nancy Brunning (Ngati Raukawa, Ngai Tuhoe)
Inspired by the poems of Rowley Habib (Ngati Tuwharetoa)

Directed by Nancy Brunning

Featuring Scotty Cotter (Havoc in the Garden, Purapurawhetu, Awhi Tapu), Maaka Pohatu (Strange Resting Places, Mark Twain and Me in Maoriland) and Rawiri Paratene (The Maori Troilus and Cressida, Hohepa).

Te Papa Museum – The Marae, Level 4
Friday 29 June 2012 12pm
Raw Men contains adult content*