Wild Dogs under my skirt is the solo show, written and performed by Tusiata Avia. It has travelled the globe for five years, performed in venues as varied as Vienna, Hamburg and Honolulu. For me, the show has finally found its way home, to a city where the Pacific, especially Samoan contexts that the work engages with, is read with a richer sense of recognition.

The set is minimal and striking. A sole sapelu hangs perilously from the ceiling, with a cross in parallel, also in spotlight. The pace of Avia’s performance is just right, allowing each characterisation to comfortably register with the audience’s familiarity. The choreography is elegantly executed, emphasising the movements with simplicity and grace.

Avia has an immediate and engaging presence, which she uses to gauge an audience with astuteness. Her aunty characters, who continually gossip, scold and always inspire terror, suggest a depth of Avia’s personal knowledge of these hilarious and frightening relatives. Animal lovers had best close their ears to the delight of which certain child characters take to persecuting their emaciated ‘guard’ dog, Bingo. Comparing pisupo to human flesh and naming the bouncers on K’rd as being "all cousins of David Tua and Jonah Lomu" brings the audience to tears with laughter.

However, the limitation of two distinctive voices with varying levels of "Samoan-ness", used to distinguish the Samoan-born with their thick accents and the performer’s own natural New Zealand lilt, is distracting and repetitive. This probably has to do with the choice of similarly themed poems and their protagonists.

Of particular interest is the Arabian love affair. The arid landscape and resulting acrimony between the pair is a delightful disintegration which could linger longer at the mosque. Also, Avia’s tale of her first journey to Samoa is direct and poignant.

The eponymous work comes right at the end, with a feeling that it has come a poem too late, with a slight flatness of the character’s ponderings on getting a malu.

Avia’s poetry encapsulates the struggles of being a Pacific woman with wit, subtlety and an eagle eye. The balance of levity and ferocity in her work highlights the optimal results and palpable care in developing and crafting a solid solo show over a long performance season, which is in stark contrast to a lot of other local theatre work.

Avia is a delight to watch: forthright, compelling and not to be missed.

[After its 6pm performance at the Musgrove Studio, Sunday 11 March, Wild Dogs plays the Victoria Theatre, Devonport, Thurs 15 – Fri 16 March at 7pm.]

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