Fresh Gallery is, well, fresh. It’s clean, refined, classy and sits perfectly in the Otara Town Centre which is also a unique, cultured and colourful place. 

Urban Dictionary suggests that ‘fresh’ also means ‘something of quality’ and the gallery fits that bill as well. It’s an open space, white, and decorated in minimalist style. The performance area is expansive with three white rectangular boxes centre stage and eight dark grey plastic seats, four on each side, set at the sides of the stage. It’s all on the flat with fifty or so similar grey seats available for the audience and all are filled before show time.

‘My Life, My Story, My South Auckland’ came with a suggested R16 rating but this was left for parents to regulate and we had no hesitation in deciding that our eleven year old theatre aficionado son, having seen Black Faggot and recently been in Auckland Theatre Company’s Lord of the Flies, would be up for anything the South Auckland Theatre Collective could deliver, and so it transpired. Not to disrespect the ‘in your face’ nature of the content which is hard-hitting and confrontational but it is also funny and accessible and welcomes us in, but with the promise of a good natured slap or two around the head and a giggle to boot. 

As I get older I become increasingly aware – and grateful – that each generation engenders its own appropriately primed theatre creators and Chris Molloy is certainly an important one of these. He’s driven to speak with his own distinctive voice and to facilitate opportunities for others to speak up and be heard also.

The South Auckland Theatre Collective aims, he tells us in the informative programme sheet, “to be a supportive and stimulating creative hub, for established and emerging performing artists, to explore the uniqueness of their voice, and by collaborating with other art forms, challenge themselves artistically to create dynamic devised performances.” In his director’s note he shares his wish that the production will touch us, change us and challenge us – and it does all three.

In a curtain speech following the show Molloy tells us that the stories that make up the work are all from the personal experience of the actors; that the actors are all mostly new to performing and that they were initially contacted by means of a panui to the community and volunteered to take part. He reminds us briefly of the complexity associated with telling our personal stories especially when they’re difficult as in every case these have been. He also takes the time to thank Manukau Institute of Technology for their support and Fresh Gallery for providing the venue.

What he fails to touch on is his and co-director Mohi Critchley’s own deep involvement in this process and in the sharing of, and building, a skills base in performers who have little no theatre experience and who are telling their profoundly challenging stories to people they don’t know – or worse, to family members who may be hearing them for the first time. There are words for what Molloy has done – motivating, bonding, facilitating – but no word really scratches the surface of this achievement and the amount of love and commitment that has got them all to where they end up. 

Molloy also tells us that the style they’ve chosen – no set, few props, three boxes, a largely empty space – has been imposed on them by impecunity. It works fine, even if it is a tad Palangi, because it’s the content and the storytelling that are the show and that’s what we remember. 

The cast are dressed for the most part in black pants and tasteful black T shirts with a maroon circle emblazoned on the front with South Auckland Theatre Collective written in the circle. A couple of the actors are dressed slightly differently but the whole gives a sense of carefully considered design and the result is very effective indeed. 

The production is effectively eight individual narratives mostly told end-on-end but with a couple of stories – principally ‘Sara’ – woven into the texture of the others.

‘I Don’t Understand’ (Junior Misimoa) is the story of an eight year old boy whose father murders his mother with a machete. The essence of the story is contained in the boy’s inability to understand how Jesus and God could let this happen when his family prayed and went to church and the profound challenge this was to his faith. Grief and anger cleverly hide the horror of the father’s act and Misimoa finds a lovely balance between the actor’s knowing and the child’s confusion. 

‘Sara’ (Abigail Coleman) is a lovely set of vignettes travelling through her life and which are interspersed expertly throughout the show. They connect through a love of music and the satisfaction gained by performing, divert into the depths of domestic abuse and back out the other side to a new time of hope. Coleman is a lovely performer and infuses her work with an infectious optimism. 

‘Sad Situation’ (Tim Mitipelo) takes us into the world of ‘smoke’ and, ultimately, into the unfathomable world of a mate’s suicide. Bookended by a soundtrack of cars passing, Mitipelo seamlessly engages us in a world where he plays multiple characters and where paranoia rules. Mitipelo is a talented performer and he skilfully uses his undoubted comic ability to ensure the content of his narrative doesn’t become so dark and maudlin that it turns us off. It’s big stuff and it’s expertly made and managed. 

Sara reappears, now in a band, and happily wanting ‘to do this forever’.

‘Trapped’ (Jay Masina) is a story rich in a new rhetoric. It’s poetic and quotable – “hope can drive a person insane”, “I’ve had dreams like you”, “my father’s right, I don’t amount to much” – and the horror of homelessness raises its ugly head while we again revisit the recurring theme of “I was there for you God, why aren’t you here for me?”. Masina manages the refined language he has chosen very well and it works a treat. It’s powerful stuff, uncompromising and without humour, and leaves the audience sitting in a most uncomfortable silence. 

‘Big Daddy’ (Isaac Nonu) is a subtle piece about relationships and family. Nonu is a fine performer, charismatic and handsome, and when he ends the ‘If I was a ladies man’ game by saying he would want to be his grandpa, we get a first glimpse of where this largely impressionistic piece will end up. He takes us to Vegas with a fine Sinatra impersonation, then back to RotoVegas with more of the same, but when his girl leaves him the façade breaks down and he visits his Grandpa to tell him “She left me.” It’s a deeply moving moment and, as Nonu morphs into his Grandpa, it’s evident that we’re watching performer and director in sublime harmony. Where many would wish to rush this moment, Nonu and Molloy let it breathe so we can take it all in and share this extraordinary and personal experience. 

Sara returns. She’s in her own band now, doing what she loves and in her first ‘real relationship’.

‘Mum Knows Best’ (Chloe Aramoana) is also a relationship piece. Aramoana wants her freedom and we see this as she hangs out with a group of youngsters her mother describes as “No hoper kids”. She defies her mother, climbs out her window and goes to a party she’s not supposed to attend, meets a boy there and runs off with him. The party scene involves the other actors and it is fantastic devised work, subtle and engaging. We move on a year and the relationship has soured to such a degree that she’s been getting the bash and has to make a choice. Again, we see the actor decide to take the most affirming action and the narrative ends with the line “Hi Mum, can I come home.” We assume, hopefully, that Mum will say yes, but we’ll never really know. 

Sara is now thirty four and her boy has changed, he yells, tells her she’s fat and ugly, is hyper-vigilant and hits her. She asks ‘how can you let someone do that to you’ and says she doesn’t know who she is anymore. 

‘The Hand She Was Dealt’ (Kat Ratcliffe) is a surreal piece that follows the inner life of a young street prostitute. There’s the suggestion of serious mental illness, a pair of red high heels that impact behaviour, the overtly possessive “this is my side of the street” poised delicately opposite “all I crave is your shadow company”, the powerful observation that it’s all about “rich man’s rage” and a final, deeply moving “I’m so dirty”. Ratcliffe has extraordinary power as a performer but is, in this production, at her best when she’s voicing her inner monologue.

Ratcliffe doesn’t wear the branded T shirt and neither does the final performer, Chaz Wade. Wade is in black, like Ratcliffe, but has white braces, a bow tie and a cheese cutter cap, making him the most distinctive male character. 

‘Four Walls’ (Chaz Wade) is a frightening look inside the world of the mentally ill, incarcerated and out of sight of the world. He has a ‘friend’ – Thomas – who no-one else can see. Thomas helps him with his bench presses, listens to him recite what he can remember of the ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech his father has talked to him about, takes him for piggyback rides and listens to his dream that “one day I’ll get out of here” and that they’ll both go to Rainbow’s End and Thomas can meet all his family.

It doesn’t happen, of course, and the show’s version of Nurse Ratched sees to that by medicating him and shifting him to a different unit: a place where Thomas cannot go. It’s a well performed horror show bearing a frightening resemblance to the reality of Lake Alice in the 1970s – all that’s missing is the ECT – and Wade is always on top of his material.

The production ends, appropriately, with Sara today. She’s finally left her partner and is sensing her old self coming back a little bit more each day. She tells us she has hope. We acknowledge her courage and the courage shown by all the characters and all the actors throughout the evening. It’s very good work and a snapshot of lives lived, an authentic mirror held up to nature as we would all wish it to be.  

As we drove home down a deserted motorway* in the dark I thought about South Auckland, about Otara, about Mangere and the times I’ve been to review work in these communities. The experiences have been affirming, funny, rich and courageous. The word that comes most to mind is ‘courage’ and never more so than on this night where eight young people shared their stories with us, and one man who conceived it, pulled it all together.  

Admission is by koha.

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