During a week in which a couple were convicted of neglect for raising their four kids in a home with no bedding and booze instead of food in the cupboards, the topic of child abuse is front page news. Actually, it probably wouldn’t matter which week the play opened, child abuse is all too often front page news, which is why a confronting work by a young Maori playwright on the subject is an intriguing prospect. Patua translates as strike or beat. It’s an unflinching title for a play about a Maori baby beaten to death by her own family. Writer/director Renae Maihi sets out in the programme that she had a central question when creating Patua “What happened to make them behave like this?” If newspaper reports can’t give us the answers, maybe art can. 

The play opens with a 2-year-old girl critically ill in Starship hospital and the Ariki family in hiding. Baby Moni’s household are a terrifying lot. Grandfather Helsy is the shitkicking head of the family setting the tone for his short-fused son T, who belittles his partner June with harsh doubts over Moni’s paternity. T’s younger, tender sister Sissy cowers. [More] 

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“Stunning, moving, and important”, reads the advertising for this play that won a section prize at the 2013 Adam NZ Play Awards. That’s quite a build-up. And that’s not all: Patua, written and directed by Renae Maihi, sets out to be “a story, a movement” on a subject that should strike at the heart of everyone with a pulse.

Now to see if it shapes up.

The opening scene, a brief wero, immediately presents the theme of challenge and leads straight into the action relating to the serious social problem it addresses.

The members of the cast are divided between two branches of a family – close kin but far apart in the matter of functioning. Alternate scenes juxtapose situations and attitudes.

In Family 1 a battered baby has been taken to hospital. Backstory: mother left years ago (we hear later she had good reason) but since “raising a family is a woman’s job” father Helsy has abdicated responsibility with disastrous results. Keywords: nature, loss of culture, violence, with references to prison, pokie-playing and abuse revealed in bursts of harsh language.

Family 2 celebrates the birthday of a 25 year old with a mental age of 5. Backstory: father died, but mother held the family together; a couple wants a baby but have a fertility problem. Keywords: nurture, culture, education, faith, caring.

More subtle, but present, are references to smoking and alcohol. Moveable stage furniture is constructed of beer crates, and bottles are positioned in scenes relating to family 1. With changes of lighting creating very different effects between scenes, aided by the ways the actors utilize the shapes, the boxes suggest and provide varied forms and usages.

The take of the work is supported and enhanced by the framework of the play: wero, alternated scenes suggesting tau-utuutu korero, and ending with waiata,

Usually my view would be that the playwright should not also be the director, but in this case Renae Maihi’s clear vision for her work has produced a formidable result. She has drawn strong performances from the cast.

The women – played by Aroha Hathaway, Cian Elyse White, Maria Walker, Ngahuia Piripi – all present fully believable characters and are always true to them.

The men – Stephen Butterworth, Vinnie Bennett, William Davis, and Mohi Critchley – also excel. Davis, in the pivotal role of Helsy, performs it to perfection, and Critchley’s Boo is a delight throughout.

Particularly impressive is the use of gestures in some places where words would not suffice, or be superfluous.

The decision to double the roles of the young couples most closely involved with the babies is another brave one that pays off due to the skills of the two actors. The performances of both Cian Elyse White and Vinnie Bennett in their respective juxtaposed characters from each family are so distinctive that the doubling can well be overlooked.

The challenge to the audience is accentuated by the fact that the setting is local – the baby is in Starship, the women sit in Britomart. And some lines could not be more powerful in their intent: “She’s one of ours.” ; “Carrying a name like Ariki and treated like scum.”

“Sometimes the ‘right’ way to do things is not the right way.”

References to events in past history make it clear that the challenge is not restricted to the Maori community.

If pushed to be picky, I’d say some of the scenes designed for release of tension seem a little too light, particularly the short almost farcical birth scene, but many in the audience enjoy it. The lumpy pregnant puku could be improved, as could the minister’s costume.

Audience involvement is undoubted – people laugh and weep. The company, Blanket & Musket Productions (Hiona Henare with crew Padma Akula, Jane Hakaraia, Sean Lynch, Hemi Kiwikiwi, Shona Tawhiao, and Cynthia Horne), have met the challenge head on, and won.

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