A combination of Witi Ihimaera and Albert Belz’s writing skills, and the directing nous of Sam Scott who’s spearheaded Auckland’s youth theatre company Massive for many years, pretty much promised a great night at the theatre.

They all delivered, as did the cast.

There is a lot that can’t be said about the story, to do so would be to rob anyone who hasn’t seen it of the pleasure of the penny gradually dropping.  

You are in two different time zones;  the present when Whero is in London pursuing her dream of a great future as a singer, and her parents’ past when they meet as young people full of promise and love only to come on difficult times. Whero struggles with past demons and with the pressure that goes with seeking stardom. Without her good friends, she would be in far worse trouble than she is.

There are others too in the story; Whero’s loyal friend Red (a ballsy and moving performance by Natalie Medlock) Irish manager Dermot (played with great warmth by Wesley Dowdell), and Dermot’s Tupo, with Blair Strang avoiding the gay stereotype to give a nicely nuanced performance).

Kura Forrester is not on stage for long but man she makes her presence felt as Anahera, Whero’s mother, and Jarod Rawiri and Tainui Tukiwhao who swap over roles as the father, Kotare and mystery relation, Petera, are both extremely strong actors. Bree Peters takes a little while to ease into the role of Whero but has a very natural acting style which suits the part.

Scott knows how to get the most out of a script, in terms of meaning and impact, and also understands timing – this is fast and furious when it needs to be (which sometimes means some of the gorgeous writing goes unheard), but there is also space at crucial times.   
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Witi Ihimaera’s 1977 collection of short stories The New Net Goes Fishing begins with a story of a family leaving Waituhi to travel the yellow brick road to the Emerald City (Wellington) and it ends with an account of the grandfather twenty years later returning to his papakainga (ancestral home).

Albert Belz has used Ihimaera’s central theme but not his stories about a new generation of Māori coping with the social and economic upheavals of the times. In the 21st century the New Zealand Diaspora, to use Ihimaera’s description in a programme note, has spread in Whero’s New Net to London, where a young woman, Whero, is chasing her dream of becoming a famous pop singer.

Dermot, her Irish manager, has his Emerald City – Sydney (he was brought up on Australian soaps) – while his Māori lover Tupo, having found some success in his work in London now yearns for New York. Just as a record deal is about to be struck Whero receives a mysterious visitor who claims he is whanau and hands her a diary supposedly kept by her dead father.

The diary triggers an emotional upheaval in the already mentally disturbed Whero with recollections of her parents and her desire for home. This is echoed in Dermot’s brief return to Ireland where he has to help his uncle restore his whakapapa which was destroyed when the family Bible was lost in a fire. The play ends with Whero, Tupo and Dermot representing the new net going fishing in new Emerald Cities but still attached emotionally and spiritually to their papakainga.

Despite an uneven start to the production and Tracey Collins’s dull setting of just two polystyrene stone slabs (suitable for touring I suppose) which adds nothing to evoke the atmosphere of a flat or gig in London or the East Coast or Auckland of Whero’s memory, the second half turned out to be emotionally compelling and dramatically sustained, further advancing Albert Belz’s reputation as one of our leading playwrights.

The production is blessed with a particularly fine performance from Bree Peters as Whero, aided by a very strong supporting cast including Jarod Rawiri playing a suitably enigmatic Petera who delivers the diary and Wesley Dowdell as Dermot and Tainui Tukiwaho and Kura Forrester as Whero’s troubled parents.
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This intriguingly elusive evocation of an OE experience begins as a straight-forward narrative and turns out to be a great deal more. What starts as a faintly prosaic story of place v displacement morphs into a positively poetic manifestation of personalities-at-war in conflict with a centred sense of identity.

Inspired by Witi Ihimaera’s short stories – mostly but not limited to A New Net Goes Fishing (Heinemann 1977) – playwright Albert Belz has moved the unifying context on from urban to intercontinental drift. Or rather he has compared and contrasted the two by virtue of a diary (or is it?) being read by Whero, a young Māori singer adrift in London. It is her having missed her father’s unveiling back home that provokes her sudden interest in his – and her own – past. .

Kotare, her father, moved from the East Coast to Auckland with his girlfriend Anahera and their baby daughter, Whero, after the meat works closed down in his home town. Clearly something remains un-confronted and unresolved in the father-daughter relationship …

Inexorably the carefully crafted revelations distil Whero’s and Kotare’s states of being, capturing an essence of mental and emotional dislocation that all of us can relate to at some level. To explain it all more clearly here would be to spoil the dramatic impact, so I shall be circumspect.

The Māori proverb – Ka pu te ruha, ka hao te rangatahi – translates as: The old net is cast aside, the new net goes fishing; A new generation takes place of the old. The specific question this play asks is, will Whero’s ‘new net’ – this new life she aspires to – sustain or submerge her true self?

Bree Peters vacillates with great distinction between Whero’s feisty adventurer and lost soul abroad, hitting each emotional mark with a trueness that is all the more appreciated in retrospect. As with many elements of the play itself, any questions that arise regarding the credibility or rationality of her behaviour are dramatically answered in the final phase.

To the role of the East-London rocker Red, Whero’s stroppy, demanding, controlling and emotionally immature partner in performance and life, Natalie Medlock brings the same semi-articulate vocal and physical qualities she paraded most recently in A Song for the Ugly Kids. [Spoiler warning] This may have been legitimate if it were not for the fact that she has to ring true as a manifestation of Whero’s alternative self. When we’ve seen it all before elsewhere, her credibility as Whero’s self-created alter ego is subverted. [ends]

The gay couple in the flat below are Tupo, a Māori New Zealander who makes promotional videos, and Dermot from Ireland, who runs a bar and acts as manager for Whero (and Red). It is Dermot, superbly rendered by Wesley Dowdell, who – when not attending to his own concerns back home concerning a family bible lost in a fire – looks out for Whero in ways that may or may not be in her best interests: we are left to be the judges of that.

Blair Strang’s Tupo is sublime, totally at home in the big wide world, happily basking in his simple pleasures and mainstream tastes. The only thing that reminds us he’s Māori is when he tries to teach Dermot – they are both pissed and stoned – the Ka Mate haka: "slapping your thighs and skiing, skiing …" A stand-out scene of poignant comedy.

"I am not a Kiwi," Whero tells Petera, the remote relation who turns up in London (early in the play), presumably expecting food and shelter. "I’m an Aucklander." But he’s just there to bring her the diary her father bequeathed her. Jarod Rawiri* nails this elusive character with just the right balance of certainty and mystery.

As manifested through her increasingly obsessive reading of the diary, the progress of Whero’s parents’ relationship, from the East Coast to Auckland, is played out in a series of scenes that are strongly redolent of – but not directly adapted from – Ihimaera’s stories.

Tainui Tukiwaho* finds a full range of emotional states in Kotare’s story while Kura Forrester responds, true to each moment, as the increasingly necessary stabilising force. In a neatly drawn cameo, Wesley Dowdell doubles as their Auckland landlord. The memorable fullness of the Kotare /Anahera story, as sketched in a few well-wrought scenes, is another testament to the skills that have created this script and production.

With subtle lighting by Jeremy Ferns and an evocative music and sound design by Tama Waipara, Tracey Collins’ ingeniously conceived set, of two low rock walls dividing ocean and sky from land and floorboards, allows director Sam Scott to bring a fluid flow to the action. Jessika Verryt’s costume designs are also spot on.

My only concern is with the theatrical weakness of the musical performances that book-end the play. Amplification of guitars and voices is clearly needed. The more confident and alive Whero is when she escapes into her performing persona, the better the whole story will work.

That said, in Whero’s New Net, the Massive Company has landed yet another fresh, nutritious and deeply entertaining contribution to the Kiwi theatre banquet. It plays briefly in each town on its tour: don’t miss it.
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*In some towns on the tour, Rawiri will play Kotare and Tukiwaho will play Petera.
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In revisiting last year’s wholly successful production, which I reviewed in September 08 (link), I was curious to see how it played out with me already aware of the significant twists revealed in the second act.  Certainly, a number of the possibly confusing exchanges are easier to understand on a repeat viewing.

This touring season sees a cast change in the character Red, now Natalie Medlock in lieu of Madeleine Sami who took the role last year.  Medlock’s Red is an amusingly sassy native London rocker who is instrumental (no pun intended) in driving title character Whero (Bree Peters) to perform her music.

Jarod Rawiri and Tainui Tukiwaho switch their roles each night, and at the Pumphouse I was privileged to see them playing the alternate characters to last year’s season.  Tukiwaho’s natural humour translates effectively to Petera, the mysterious visiting cousin who gives Whero her late father’s diary, which covers the period over which her parents met and she was born.

Rawiri also charms and amuses as said father Kotare, whose story unfolds as Whero eagerly reads the diary, to the consternation of Red, threatened by her bandmate’s interest in her past and her homeland.  Kura Forrester’s Anahera, Whero’s mother, is simply lovely.

Wesley Dowdell and Blair Strang reprise their lovable odd-couple as Whero’s Irish manager Dermot and his lapsed-catholic corporate gay lover Tupo, in advertising.  Their relationship has a genuine quality, beyond mere stereotypes – although many of the biggest laughs come when Strang, known for his beefcake ladies-man roles, behaves in a camp and/or effeminate manner.

Albert Belz’s script uitilises various recognisable devices, like characters ironically repeating each others’ lines, plus pop culture references to rival Toa Fraser, from the Wizard of Oz to Home and Away*.  The adaptations of Witi Ihimaera’s 1976 classic short story collection The New Net Goes Fishing are not framed and showcased as such, rather woven into the seven characters’ own stories so it’s not clear or important where they begin and end.

In its own right this version still essentially works – a fairly idealistic story about family, ambition vs. loyalty, art vs. sanity.  Whether due to the different space (with its distractingly squeaky stage floor), or the cast being perhaps a bit more on automatic, the production has become more detached, less affecting somehow.  I recall finding the original quite powerful with room for development.  Almost a year later, in the wake of wholly positive feedback and an Outstanding performance of the Year award for Strang, if anything there seems to be even more room for development now.

One way the impact could be increased would be in Whero’s allegedly extraordinary talent for music.  While there is obviously a great deal more to the story, her talent is a crucial element and a more genuinely arresting musical performance from her would make much of the connected plot more believable.

The combined efforts of the design team of Tracey Collins, Jeremy Fern, Jessica Verryt and Tama Waipara ably carry a well performed, if over-written play.  Altogether Whero’s New Net, all critical points aside, is still a Taonga.

*Interesting they avoided mentioning Shortland Street given the potential irony available since both Strang and playwright Belz are known faces from the soap’s past.  Too easy, or just too embarrassing?
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Whero’s New Net is a striking new play which asks those quintessential Kiwi questions: who are we, where do we come from and where do we really belong? And perhaps because I’ve spent my whole life asking those same questions, I found myself immediately captured by its premise.

Whero Mahana (Bree Peters), a young Kiwi woman, is on the great Kiwi OE, following her ambition to make it big as a musician in London. She is supported by a seemingly ragtag bunch of friends: her manager Dermot (Wesley Dowdell), an Irishman with a penchant for booze and cute Pacific men; his boyfriend Tupo (Blair Strang), a corporate advertising type; and her best friend Red (Madeleine Sami), a fiery, passionate co-musician. Whero is on the cusp of a major recording deal. So far, so good. Then Petera (Jarod Rawiri), the cousin Whero didn’t know she had, mysteriously turns up, hands her her father’s diary and disappears again. As Whero opens the diary and reads about her parents’ history, her world starts imploding and inexplicable things occur.

It would be wrong for me to reveal much more of the plot, but suffice to say that from this point in the layers of reality and truth are drawn ever tighter around the characters, much like the layers of an invisible net. As well as identity, Whero’s New Net delves into the layers of family, obligation and takes a brave look at the effects of mental illness. Featuring a “dream team” of young Kiwi actors, the play is a tight ensemble piece that would have been a joy to observe had I not been so caught up in the story.

Peters gives an assured performance as tough but soulful rock chick Whero. Sami is well cast as an explosive Red, while Blair Strang definitively throws off the lingering shroud of Shorty Street to emerge as a chocolate sex god (to quote from another Massive play). His shirtless reinterpretation of the haka, performed with Wesley Dowdell, is a comedic (and aesthetic) highlight. Dowdell gives a nuanced performance as the lapsed-Catholic, gay, guilt-ridden manager – rightly entrusted with some of the best lines in the play. Rawiri, as Petera, brings a geeky charm to what could have been a much more sinister character. But my favourite pair were Tainui Tukiwaho playing Whero’s father Kotare, and Kura Forrester as Whero’s mother Anahera. These two had a real onstage chemistry, making their love story convincing and moving. Both actors embodied a fragility which brought to life the poetic text – both Witi Ihimaera’s original short stories and Albert Belz’s new work, which built on the short stories as a base.

Music composed by Tama Waipara is an integral part of the play. There are “live” performances of songs throughout and even a “theme song”. The cast, in particular Peters and Sami, display fine singing voices. The final song – moving and evocative – appropriately becomes the conclusion of the play.

Set design, by Tracey Collins, and lighting by Jeremy Fern evokes a sea wall and boardwalk, complete with rusted iron screw and guano. It’s a stunning set, but if I had one minor quibble, it would be that the set is too literal. The play is largely set in London and sometimes it took an adjustment to believe that two characters sitting on a sea wall were actually in a busy airport. Having the characters enter and exit across a sea, though, was a nice metaphor for the personal exploration theme of the play.

Belz, Ihimaera and director Sam Scott discussed the process of collaboration in a pre-show talk. They talked about how much time, energy and resource is involved in supporting a truly collaborative work, and the constant negotiation required. (Belz was first commissioned to write the play in 2006 and has been working steadily since.) Scott spoke of how Massive Theatre Company prefers to give adequate incubation time to develop a work, often involving many people in its workshops and forums and consulting widely. In the case of Whero’s New Net, the negotiation was even more delicate because of Ihimaera’s place as a Maori writer of great mana, although the writer himself happily “gifted” the stories to Belz, telling him to write something original rather than do an adaptation. The collaborators recognised the writing process as “an implicit contract with Maori, our whakapapa and with the future” and spoke of how this idea influenced the development of the play.

Whero’s New Net is unashamedly nostalgic and romantic. It speaks about memories, hopes and dreams, both honouring the past and looking forward to the future. As an evolution of Maori theatre, it takes the next step, asking “where are our young people heading and what do they believe?” The answer, as poetically crafted by Belz, is both bittersweet and hopeful, and relevant to all Kiwis, not just Maori. Whero’s New Net will be a New Zealand classic. Be one of the first to see it.

Originally published in The Lumière Reader.
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The Massive Company’s new production draws inspiration from Witi Ihimaera’s stories from the 1970s about Māori leaving the security of their rural communities and adjusting to life in the city.

Writer Albert Belz has updated Ihimaera’s familiar theme by placing a group of young Māori characters in London where they face the challenge and excitement of the metropolis while dealing with the alienation that comes from leaving home. [More]

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According to their ‘Massive Way’ programme note, Massive Company has big aspirations. With cast of seven very strong and capable actors in a play scripted by one of the leading young Māori playwrights, Albert Belz, featuring adaptations from one of the classic short story collections of celebrated Māori author Witi Ihimaera, they’re not doing too badly.

Directed by Massive Company’s accomplished Artistic Director Sam Scott, Belz’s role is closer than usual to that of dramaturge, having composed the script through extensive workshopping with a large group of actors provided by Massive Company, including the resulting cast of this premier production.

Scott’s trademark visually appealing style is complemented well by Tracey Collins’ semi-rustic set design, featuring versatile large worn stone (polystyrene) slabs.  Whilst it would be extra wonderful to have actual limestone or concrete slabs that size I can understand the logistic impracticalities, not to mention the prohibitive cost.  They look the part anyway.  The visual effect is then exponentially enhanced by lighting designer Jeremy Fern’s shades and textures. 

The music and sound design of Tama Waipara are central to the story of Whero (Bree Peters), a young musician who’s moved to London, with her sassy rock chick bandmate Red (Madeleine Sami), to have a crack at the acoustic singer-songwriter scene.  Trouble is, they’re only getting gigs doing covers, and what’s more Whero is acting strangely…

When Petera (Jarod Rawiri), a cousin from home arrives to present her with her late father’s diary, which was his will that she should have, Whero is clearly torn by her desire to know his life, and her resentment over his abandoning her when she was an infant.  As Whero reads, the story of her father Kotare Mahana and mother Anahera unfolds, from their first meeting to… the rest. 

Throughout the play’s two acts mysteries are posed and teasers are played out whodunnit style, and then the answers revealed with casual realism.  The various twists aren’t all great surprises, but some are and ultimately it can be stripped back to being a simple tale of likeable people it’s easy to care about, so whatever happens to them is important to us.

Tainui Tukiwaho as Kotare is both the most amusing character among many, and the most tragic, likewise.  Childlike and charming, a loveable clown with a deep spiritual longing for the sea, he shares good stage chemistry with Kura Forrester’s Anahera, the lovely wahine with the wit to match and challenge Kotare’s irascible cheek.

Wesley Dowdell plays Whero’s manager Dermot, an Irishman who’s personal ’emerald city’ lies in Australia – a tropical paradise compared to his squally hometown Dublin.  Dermot’s brogue is solid and undistracting (almost distractingly so), testament to Dowdell’s skill and the input of dialect coach Linda Cartwright.  Blair Strang plays marketing fag Tupo, and the pair make an entertaining gay couple with Dermot’s sharp Irish wit counterpoised with Tupo’s subtle prima-donna pseudo-effeminacy.

This Whero is indeed a lucky girl.  She is loved by every other character in the play, in their own ways.  At times they fight amongst themselves over her, even come to blows, and all for the love of Whero.  It’s a heartwarming reality for her, bearing reflection on the predicament of a great many people in real life who have the kind of problems Whero has, without the support and empathy she receives from her friends, and family.

Whero’s New Net captures a bushel of ideas and emotions, all centred around distinguishing where home is: where we are from, or where we long to be?  Some may be lucky enough to consider both the same, others desire somewhere far away, though they may be ready to rush back after a single pleading phone call.  Still others …well, you could write a book about it.

The solutions provided in the story are arguably more simple than the average real life scenario, and the characters might seem clichéd and exploitative were it not for the genuine heart that the company delivers this layered whanau comedy-drama.  Big theatre this is: not so much in the scale of production as in its potential significance to us all.

Acknowledgment must also be due to Kaumatua Ngamaru Raerino, hidden among the voice coaches and production crew in the programme credits.  I don’t know what active role he played in the process but from his title I infer that he has supported and endorsed this work, to our great fortune. The play itself is a taonga.  

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