When you share a space and breathe the same air as six performers over just 50 minutes, and come away feeling you know people you might never have met otherwise, feeling moved by their stories and their resilience, there can be no doubt it has been worth it to witness The Race.

Presented by Hobson Street Theatre Company in association with the Auckland City Mission, The Race is HSTC’s seventh show since 2010 and the first to be brought to Wellington. (See our reviews of Homeless Economics, Scenes from a Night and Last Chance Café.)

The stage is set up as an adult education classroom, the whiteboard suggesting tonight’s subject is basic Te Reo Māori. This offers a context for bringing together the disparate personalities we will meet but they don’t constrain themselves within a standard make-believe play. In fact they enter singing and dancing to ‘Poi E’ in the apparent belief they’re about to perform a musical. 

It’s Kelly Tunui, who will play the course tutor Kaiako, who tells them they’re doing The Race tonight. Amid their playing out of the lessons and solving problems like how to signify a new day – a simply funny solution – we join in the lessons and get to know the actors, their student characters and why they’ve enrolled in the course.

Shadow plays Moana, the Cook Islander road worker who lives in Panmure; Joeli Thacker is James the property developer, born in Remuera, now living in Grey Lynn; Rawiri Sears Ngati is Rewiti from Patea, now looking for work in the city; Belinda Pollett is Zondi from a cul-de-sac in the UK; Richard Turipa is Hone the Cuz who works for Sealord.

Some have lost the language and want to find it again, like Rewiti, who takes full responsibility for getting side-tracked at high school into wanting to be Pākehā. Others are approaching it afresh – not least James, whose motive for wanting to learn ‘the protocol’ is so calmly explained we have to think twice to absorb its import; its resonance with our colonial past.

So why is it called The Race? I expect it’s because the race is on to ensure te reo survives before the racist naysayers, the people who think ‘equality’ means everyone assimilating to Pākehā values, prevail and it withers from neglect. Not that this is made explicit in the show – agit-prop is not their style.

Homelessness also is inextricably related to race, as the programme note reminds us: “a disproportionate number identify as Māori or of Pacific Island descent.” This underlying awareness is delightfully offset by the generosity of Hone the Cuz, who is proudly steeped in tikanga Māori and ever-ready to welcome people to his home.

Throughout the show there’s a sense of easy transition between the characters and their actor selves. When they step out of the classroom and into a discrete pool of light to share their experiences of racism, it’s tempting to assume the stories are autobiographical. They certainly ring true. Zonti/Belinda’s recollection of her the racist slogans constantly painted on their walls back home is all the more touching from being recalled from her bewildered child perspective.

When Moana/Shadow declares “racism is bullshit” early on, there’s a sense that his deep-set passion is rooted in a personal experience. His sharing of it later on is heart-rending and especially powerful because the way tragedy provokes his own racist response allows us to see how easy it is for all of us to blame race for an individual’s actions. And when we hear how he was lifted out of that self-defeating place, and by whom … It’s when the true humanity wins out against the odds that I choke up. 

On the face of it, The Race seems like a loose, light-hearted ‘work in progress’. But it connects with its audience wholeheartedly and its insights are profound. 

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