This play drama­tis­es the real events of the 1912 Wai­hi gold­min­ers’ strike which start­ed in March and went through to Novem­ber.  It fol­lows the for­tunes of the strik­ers’ fam­i­lies and par­al­lels the strug­gle with the Suf­fragette move­ment in Eng­land.

Play­wright Lorae Par­ry focus­es much of the script on the women in the strik­ers’ fam­i­lies. (There are some weird token ref­er­ences to Maori that I think should have been left out.) The didac­tic script in the first half is light­ened by singing and danc­ing although my pref­er­ence is for the sec­ond half which is full of action. Direc­tor Kate Jason­Smith, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Jan Bol­well, and fight chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Ricky Dey have done a ter­rif­ic job here. It’s chaot­ic, makes good use of the space, and is a great con­trast for the lev­i­ty in the first half. The play itself is com­pli­cat­ed and sprawl­ing with actors dou­bling and tripling (or more). They cre­ate dis­tinct char­ac­ters helped by the cos­tumes (design­ers Pinky Agnew and Joce­lyn Frances O’Kane with Sonia Costin assist­ing).

The cast are uni­form­ly ener­getic in this demand­ing ensem­ble play. My high­lights include: Lorae Par­ry as Jane Ash­ton, the banker’s qui­et­ly rad­i­cal wife; Carmel McGlone as Annie Burgess the banker’s maid (very restrained with tiny facial expres­sions and sub­tle phys­i­cal move­ments speak­ing vol­umes); the sweet scenes between Iso­bel MacK­in­non and James Gor­don (sweet­hearts Emma Beech and Thomas O’Connor respec­tive­ly);  the stir­ring speech at the end by Emi­ly Reg­tien as Kath­leen Beech, fol­lowed by a beau­ti­ful ver­sion of a song arranged by Laughton Pat­trick (#assump­tion) which I will not name because #spoil­er.

This is anoth­er play to add to the grow­ing num­ber of con­tributed-to-ear­ly-Labour shows. While this is a script that wants to edu­cate it suc­ceeds because it’s so damn enter­tain­ing. Mar­velous work.