Per­former Hay­ley Sproull tells her sto­ry of a “white wahine’s deeply dis­en­gaged bicul­tur­al her­itage”. Recog­nis­ing that her Nana’s death meant a loss of con­nec­tion to her Māori her­itage this is a “comedic explo­ration of her embar­rassed igno­rance.” (Quotes from the pro­gramme.)
An ele­gant set in white peg­board — on one side a whare shape, on the oth­er swivel­ing pan­els – with a few props is all Sproull needs to show us the awk­ward­ness of look­ing white, hav­ing Maori whaka­pa­pa and hav­ing lit­tle idea of how to con­nect with Māori cul­ture. For those of us with a sim­i­lar back­ground there are many, many moments of recog­ni­tion. Sproull is in fine voice with the songs a key ele­ment of what makes this show work for me. She also judges her phys­i­cal­i­ty and stance very well with tiny ges­tures con­vey­ing so much.
An ener­getic light­ing design by Nick Zwart (also set design­er) is ably con­trolled by tech­ni­cal oper­a­tor Michael Trigg and sup­port­ed by nice sound design by Matt Eller. Jo Ran­der­son is the script men­tor and direc­tor which shows in the tight script struc­ture and nifty use of the stage.
Rec­om­mend­ed.