Rimini and Bene­dict are vis­it­ing their uncle Tu in order to find out about their fam­ily his­tory.  Their ques­tions force him to face the reas­on he has been estranged from the whanau for years.  Tu was first per­formed at Pip­itea Marae as part of the 2012 NZ Inter­na­tion­al Fest­iv­al of the Arts, and is based on the nov­el by Patri­cia Grace.

Old Tu (Tammy Dav­is), Rimini (Erina Daniels) and Bene­dict (Matu Ngaropo) are on stage for almost the whole run­ning time. Their scenes – dis­cov­er­ing the fam­ily story – frames the his­tor­ic­al story as per­formed by the rest of the cast.  Broth­ers Philomel (Jar­od Rawiri), Boy­die (Taungaroa Emile), and Tu (Kimo Houltham) have a believ­ably fraught rela­tion­ship – one minute friends, the next Philomel and Tu are at odds with Boy­die play­ing the peace­maker.  Ma (Tina Cook) is the fra­gile heart of the fam­ily, with sis­ter Moana (Kali Kopae) look­ing toward the future.  Hoki (Scotty Cot­ter) and Jess (Aroha White) round out the cast of char­ac­ters. There is strong ensemble work by the cast in their move­ment and dia­logue.

The ori­gin­al set has been shortened to fit the smal­ler place at Circa and it has lost some of the grandeur that was so impress­ive.  How­ever the smal­ler space means the action feels more intim­ate. The act­ors are neces­sar­ily closer togeth­er.  Sim­il­arly the script has been tweaked, mak­ing some parts of the story clear­er, while los­ing clar­ity in oth­ers.

An import­ant New Zea­l­and story that will res­on­ate with many.

  • Tu at Circa Theatre, 15–29 June 2013.
  • Circa are also host­ing Tawata Pro­duc­tions’ Matariki Devel­op­ment Fest­iv­al. There are rehearsed read­ings of the plays in devel­op­ment at 1pm on Fri­day 21 June  &  Sat­urday 22 June. Open to all, free of charge. There will be live music after the Fri­day & Sat­urday per­form­ances of Tu, start­ing at 10pm in the Circa foy­er.