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.