It was 18 years ago that playwright Mitch Tawhi Thomas premiered Have Car Will Travel at BATS Theatre. I described it (in my NBR review) as inspired, for “putting anarchistic hedonism on a collision course with the rule of utu – two ultimately self-destructive concepts moving in opposite directions”. The thump to the guts that play delivered is replicated on this opening night of Pakaru (which won the Adam NZ Play Award last year). We can hear hearts pounding …

The Māori Dictionary defines pakaru as “smashed, shattered, broken, broken down”: arguably a starting point for many of the lives Mitch Tawhi Thomas has characterised in his plays.* It is the understanding and compassion he has for his flawed and marginalised characters that makes them so attractive to actors and compelling for audiences.  

Here it’s the Anderson family that’s pakaru. But Jess, after years of sole parenting Shayla and Braydon, her now teenaged twins, is taking steps to claim a bit of life for herself by venturing on a date – with a man called Tahi.

Jess’s eagerness for intimacy seems extraordinarily precipitous but Claire Waldron makes her volatility very real by overlaying her nervousness with an assertiveness that renders Rob Ringiao-Lloyd’s increasingly bewildered Tahi putty in her hands. All is on track until … (spoiler averted). Suffice to say, in a welter of AV-projected textings (created by Matasila Freshwater), a discovery is made that would challenge any parent’s capacity to cope, let alone an outsider’s sense of whether to run a mile or hang in there and try to help out.

Waldron and Ringiao-Lloyd, and Neenah Dekkers-Reihana as Shayla and Joe Dekkers-Reihana as Braydon, play the emotional complexities of the situation so truthfully that shrieks of laughter counterpoint the shocks of what we are witnessing. And so it continues as each of them tries to find a way forward. The achingly recognisable coping mechanisms each of them has compete with our own ‘What would I do?’ responses.  

This very realistic scenario plays out on Sean Coyle’s inspired non-naturalistic set: four square pits (of despair? of sanctuary?) sunk into a grey raked stage, overhung by a grey slab ceiling alleviated by four square portals (to freedom? to oblivion?). Are these characters, then, today’s children of Rangi and Papa claiming a space in which to live? The changing states of Jennifer Lal’s lighting design contribute hugely to the way we interpret the physical and emotional topography, abetted by Thomas Lambert’s sound design.

While there are distinct differences in the adolescent behaviours of Shayla and Braydon, they diverge even more when Tahi (is he the one?) moves in. To one he’s a threat, to the other he fills a gap – until another bombshell shatters any hope of reconciliation any time soon.

This revelation, which cannot be divulged here, makes me want to go back to check, in the light of my new understanding, how the early scenes play out. As I try to recall them I’m not sure things quite add up. Then there’s the question of whether or not Tahi has a job. Some things can be rationalised in retrospect, however (after all WINZ rules do tempt people to avoid the truth).

But being there, sharing each moment with Jess, Shayla, Brayden and Tahi, separately and in various combinations … The actors, Mitch Tawhi Thomas as director and the whole creative team (including wardrobe designer Amy Macaskill and technical operator Tony Black) have conspired to create a riveting, powerful and intensely moving experience.
 – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
*Having previously premiered Coupling (1994), Doughboy (1996) and Take it or Leave it (1998) at BATS, Mitch won the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award in 2002. We saw Jangle in 2010. His 2012 Adam NZ Play Award-winning Hui was produced in the 2013 Auckland Arts Festival and by the Court Theatre in Christchurch later that year.  

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer