At the beginning of this evening of seven Asian dramas, a Japanese man wearing a traditional haori jacket, Hiroshi Nakatsuji, welcomes the audience with a mihi, in well-accented te reo.

Māori spoken in Asian theatre? Ah yes, but this is New Zealand Asian theatre, written by smart young urbanites, with a preoccupation many New Zealanders can relate to: the loneliness of the long distance migrant, particularly migrants’ children. [More]

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Sometimes a play is more than just a play. 

Native Alienz is actually seven plays in one.  And it is certainly more than just a play for the Oryza Foundation because it is the flagship programme in their series entitled Asian Tales.  The Oryza Foundation was created to support performing arts in Asian communities, and Asian Tales is intended to highlight Asian Performing Arts in New Zealand.

At the risk of waxing too philosophical, I confess that I felt a thrill of delight, or rather several thrills of delight, throughout the seven short pieces that comprise Native Alienz.  Here is a collection of plays that as individual pieces and as a whole capture an idea that is at the heart of human experience: life is at once very simple and yet very complicated, individual and yet communal; we can be desperately lonely and yet inextricably connected to one another. 

Of course this is my very personal reaction to these Asian Tales, but each play also tells a very personal story that will engage audience members on a different personal level.  They are tales from the lips of Asians about what it means to be connected to one’s own culture and to a new one; to be far from home, or to be at home; to know one’s identity or to be searching for it.  Each tale revolves around one or two central characters in an exploration of individual and cultural experience.

The first of the seven plays, a tragi-comedy named Mount Head, is directed by Tony Forster and written and winningly performed by Hiroshi Nakatsuji.  This play is in the traditional Japanese storytelling form Rakugo, and acts as the opening point from which the audience experience widens as the following individual tales unfold.  Throughout Native Alienz the stage floor remains covered by bamboo mats and bamboo blinds form the backdrop, simple props and lighting augment the performances (although there were a few moments where the lighting was a little too low).

Mount Head ends and The Loyal Customer begins.  This fun and well-formed play, written and directed by Ying Ly, is played by Gary Young, (who is particularly good as Vang), Ema Barton, Kaitlyn Wong and Hiroshi Nakatsuji. It is a story about family and ambition in which a friendship is formed, at one of Auckland’s food courts, between a pregnant girl, Emma, and the chef of a Vietnamese food stall.

Now that our hearts are thoroughly warmed, Intrusions follows, written by Misa Tupou, directed by Gerald Urqhart and inspired by the Chinese gold miners from Otago. A Lone Figure, well played by Leand Macadaan, struggles against instinct, promise and compromise. Also appearing are Ally Xue, Gary Young and John Giang.  This one took me into a dream and a nightmare and a reality all at the same time!

A car accident is the catalyst for the fourth play, Midnight, State Highway 01, written by Mukilan Thangamani and directed by Alex Lee and Tony Forster. Although this less imaginative piece does not benefit from strong performances by the actors, it has its own charm as the story of two young people, an Indian man (Alvin Maharaj) and an East-Asian woman (May Lee Allen), who are both feeling a little lost, but begin to feel better simply by their literally accidental meeting.

The Mooncake and The Kumara, directed by Alex Lee and Tony Forster and written by Mei-Lin Te-Puea Hansen and Kiel McNaughton, tells its story in the 1920s through letters passed between a Chinese market gardener (Ezra Low gives an endearing performance) and his wife (Mei Chen) back in China.  This tale is a romance as Chao forms a relationship with Alice, a Māori girl (a much less endearing performance by Amber Curreen) but more than that this play describes what it means to belong.

Mask, written by Renee Liang and directed by Gerald Urqhart, is a father daughter face-off in which a Chinese girl (May Lee Allen) growing up in New Zealand tries to be both Chinese and Kiwi but with the added tensions from conflict caused by the traditional views of her father (Ezra Low), who is suitably stiff and brimmingly proud by turns.

The final play is Citizen 3, written by Davina Goh and directed by Yee Yang ‘Square’ Lee. It is the story of Sean (another likeable performance by Macadaan), a young Malaysian-Chinese man, born in Manila, schooled in Dubai, living in Malaysia, who feels unconnected to his ethnicity and his nationality.  Sean’s girlfriend is played by Andrea Bates, her ex-boyfriend is played by John Giang and three other incidental characters are played with great humour by Alvin Maharaj. 

This last play leaves me in no doubt as to the success of this season of Native Alienz.  The plays’ interpretations of questions about cultural, national and ethnic identity, and of alienation and belonging, combine artistic exploration with reality. 

These seven plays were written specifically for the project Asian Tales, which in turn has as its aim the increase of Asian performing arts. The sum of these parts is that Native Alienz has achieved real art and wonderful theatre. 

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