This Play is very interesting as well as funny. All the characters have a hilarious personality which definitely suits all ages. This show encourages more people to speak Māori in daily life by interacting with the audience and singing songs as well as telling stories of Māori myths and history.

He Kura Kōrero has very detailed props. I especially love the main light. When they tell a story the light changes to suit the story or song. They are like a kid’s TV show and I like how funny and positive the play is.

#SPOLIER ALERT!
Do not read Any Further If you Haven’t seen It! >L

This story is about how they discover treasures and how they look after them. When they are in the middle of trying to find a treasure, out of nowhere an egg suddenly appears. One of the characters tries to hide it so it will disappear, just like it appeared. Then they continue to find the right treasure. Then the egg appears again. They make a nest for it using the treasures that they found earlier. <Later>

We discover that the Egg likes being talked to and is involved in the story and most of the children at the show loved the Māui Story as it hatches! They found it was a Moa!
SPOLIER ALERT OVER

Overall I think that He Kura Kōrero is very well performed and written. I think more people should see it.

Rating:  4.8/5  Amazing

“Awesome, Ka Mau te wehi
Increíble, 驚くばかり, 真棒, Потрясающи  
I liked the play, it was very funny and interesting.” – Tava Leota

“I liked when the Moa Hatched. It was super exciting” – Blake Leota

“My favourite thing was when they found the egg.” – Willow McCaskill 

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It’s all about discovery. First the actors – Jonathan Morgan, Cassandra Tse and Trubie-Dylan Smith – discover the audience, and vice versa. Then, in their ‘best ever!’ all about ‘awesome!’ tones, they talk about the treasures they’ve discovered from all over the world and sing a song about treasure. They want to discover the perfect treasure to share.  

From an array of different-sized wooden crates they extract all sorts of things, some commonplace, others relatively exotic – and thus the play begins to covertly blend imagination with history. A scrap of something that looks like rubbish could be anything! A crown is King Athur’s, a boxing glove is Muhammad Ali’s, a tin contains Dad’s Best Dance Moves, a keyboard is the one Mark Zuckerberg used to create Facebook, a conch shell holds secrets … (The bookshelves in Debbie Fish’s set for Peggy Picket See the Face of God become a handy repository for their discoveries.)

Suddenly they discover an Egg they’ve never seen before. Appeals to the audience to suggest where it’s come from are highly productive – but, not wanting to be distracted, they stow it away and go on to discover such things as Dame Whina Cooper’s head scarf, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa’s favourite shawl … etc.

Snippets of action are provoked by some of the items – and I have to say I’m surprised and rather disturbed by the choice to single out Willie Apiata VC’s army beret for a more extensive ‘fun’ re-enactment of his heroic mate-saving deeds in Afghanistan: problematic on more than one level, I feel.

I suppose the idea is to contrast a ‘true hero’ with the trickster wannabe hero Maui-tiki-tiki-a-Taranga, whose korowai becomes the ‘perfect treasure’. It launches a lively retelling of how he extinguishes all the fires in the kāinga, gets Mahuika the Goddess of Fire to give him all ten of her fingernails of fire and, on a cheeky whim, extinguishes them too – but saves the day and his reputation with two sticks and the power to make fire forever.

The play’s other trickster character is the mysterious Egg which keeps turning up at inconvenient moments … I’m not going to reveal how that storyline evolves, you’ll have to discover that for yourselves, but it leads to a lovely revelation and a beautifully sung final song. And at this performance a group of wāhine honour the production with a heart-felt haka.  

Seemingly incidentally, yet fulfilling the stated purpose of He Kura Kōrero: The Gift of Speech, Te Reo Māori is sprinkled throughout in a perfectly natural way. Whether you are fluent, have a smattering of te reo or know virtually none, the context will ensure you are never confused. For some of the young, many of the historical names mentioned above will be a lot more strange and new – as I said upfront: it’s all about discovery. That’s how we learn, all our lives. This play imbues us with history, legend and te reo by stealth.

With great flair, fun and focus, director Carrie Green and her cast, with Jennifer Lal on lights and sound, bring the script by Rutene Spooner and Holly Chappell-Eason to vibrant life. A mother nearby, with her tamariki, says, “This is the best one I’ve seen.” Ae. Take her kupu for it.

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