This is my second consecutive review for a play inspired by a Witi Ihimaera story. His First Ball originated last year as a physical dance theatre project for the year 2 students at Manukau Institute of Technology’s Performing Arts Department.  Now, as they prepare to graduate, they’re presenting it in the CBD with Struth Productions in ‘like a bought one’ style, to show us what they’ve got.  Between them, they’ve got quite a lot. 

Introducing the opening night with a karakia from MIT kaumatua Kupuka Tirikitene, the man himself Mr Ihimaera (not Sir yet?) was again present to offer his blessing, as he was at The Whale Rider.  In his mihi he points out that it must be about a century ago now that Katherine Mansfield attended the actual ball that led her to write the short story Her First Ball in 1921. Ihimaera wrote his response, His First Ball, in 1967. So this 2014 MIT production can be seen as a centenary of sorts. 

A fictionalised account of Ihimaera’s own experience, having been invited to the Governor’s Ball in the early 60s, the light-hearted tale is a charming, comical parable exploring the meeting of cultures that don’t entirely understand one another.  Such a simple premise seems ideal for a team of energetic young emerging performing artists to showcase their abilities.

Devised by the cast of twelve with director Ruth Dudding, the script’s central narrative is in fact largely quoted directly from the original text, to the point of including descriptive prose and even ‘he said’, ‘she replied’ and the like.  Liberally interspersed with powerful harmonic singing and vigorous dance routines choreographed by Kat Walker, it’s a 50-minute package of exuberant entertainment, bordering on frenetic. 

The set is 95 percent beer crates, mostly stacked to the sides to be utilised for numerous purposes, as props and/or acrobatic supports.  In general, the production is humour-driven celebration of diversity, upbeat and essentially optimistic. 

Characters are treated somewhat broadly at face value, with no sinister underlying subtexts, nor particularly poignant or moving moments to speak of.  Particularly amusing turns include Lineni Tuitupou’s proud, fussing mother-of-the-man-of-the-hour, Coral; Tui Peterson’s would-be upper-class Mrs Simmons; Haretu Kaihe’s audacious drag queen Desiree Dawn, dubiously enlisted as style and dance tutor.

In the role of protagonist Tuta Wharepapa (name evidently chosen by the author for the comedy value of certain unfortunate mispronunciations by the social elite), Mita Tupaea presents the closest example of a natural performance, responding to a plethora of comparatively stereotypical, albeit amusing, supporting roles. 

Tavai Puni Meleisea bridges the two styles when we meet her as Joyce, the wallflower Tuta befriends once attention is gratefully diverted from the exotic wonderment he represents to the principally upper-crust ball guests.  At first she is attractively down-to-earth, as out of place in the aristocratic setting as he.  Any naturalism is subverted as they head for the dance floor, and Joyce’s circus-trick type reveal elicits one of the show’s largest applauses. 

Cat Ruka’s costume design employs a standard, industrial black-singlet white-dungarees base upon which a range of flamboyant attire is hung to represent the eclectic range of personae encountered throughout.  This dress-up box style combines with the broad characterisations to create a distinct sense that what we are watching is Tuta’s own imagined vision of his experience. 

The ethnically diverse, predominately Pasifika players are clearly having a ball themselves as they display a wide range of skills and abilities in the realm of performance, particularly in song, dance and physical theatre.

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