Jimmy King, one of New Zeal­and’s most notori­ous crim­in­als, is back in jail. He’s shar­ing a cell with Mau Vai­aga, a recent immig­rant to New Zea­l­and. Mau has com­mit­ted a crime so out­rageous that the New Zea­l­and pub­lic are out for his blood. They’re both being rep­res­en­ted by hot-shot law­yer Waimanea Huia…but is she as neut­ral as she should be?

Although it explores ser­i­ous  themes – iden­tity, media, cul­ture, justice, envir­on­ment – the play is very funny and light­hearted. There are moments of still­ness amongst the jok­ing around which serve to high­light the com­plex­ity of the issues faced by all the char­ac­ters. All three prin­cip­al act­ors inhab­it their main char­ac­ters. Jam­ie McCaskill (also the writer) is all swag­ger and atti­tude as Jimmy. He’s able to mod­er­ate that, while keep­ing the atti­tude, to allow the oth­er side of the char­ac­ter to peek through. Natano Keni plays Mau with a quieter, pulled back rhythm. When that rhythm changes it’s a (well placed) shock. Kali Kopae as Waimanea Huia is con­fid­ent and force­ful. Her char­ac­ter is in con­flict and this is demon­strated in only a few scenes. The fourth per­son on stage is musi­cian Simon Don­ald. He provides music, some voi­ceover, and the occa­sion­al char­ac­ter. (I was sur­prised to dis­cov­er this is Simon’s the­at­ric­al debut as he was so nat­ur­al on stage.) Dir­ect­or Regan Taylor, design­er Bri­an King, and light­ing design­er Jen­nifer Lal, have provided a strong space for the char­ac­ters to come alive in.

I was for­tu­nate to luck into for­um night. The cast and dir­ect­or spoke about how much they enjoyed work­ing togeth­er. This comes through in their per­form­ances on stage. Great work.

  • Man­awa by Jam­ie McCaskill on at Circa Two until 13 Octo­ber 2012.