Review: The Undertow

The Under­tow is a mas­sive the­atri­cal epic pre­sent­ed by 35 per­form­ers from Te Rākau The­atre. Writ­ten by Helen Pearse-Otene and direct­ed by Jim Mori­ar­ty it fol­lows the sto­ry of sev­en gen­er­a­tions of Welling­to­ni­ans — Māori and Pāke­hā — as they carve out a life in Ōwhiro. Each of the four plays explores the expe­ri­ence of the indi­vid­ual while set­ting it against our wider his­to­ry. They are being per­formed two at a time in the week­day evenings, while on Sat­ur­days you can see them all in a the­atri­cal marathon. I’ll add some con­tent warn­ings (after the jump because spoil­ers) but for now let me tell you that this extrav­a­gan­za is bloody grand.

This project to per­form all four plays as a quar­tet has been six years in devel­op­ment. I’ve seen the first two plays per­formed indi­vid­u­al­ly but they make so much more sense when pre­sent­ed as part of a con­tin­u­um. Play­wright Helen Pearse-Otene’s writ­ing becomes more sophis­ti­cat­ed in style and struc­ture with each play while main­tain­ing a bal­ance between con­vey­ing infor­ma­tion and emo­tion­al tone. Direc­tor Jim Mori­ar­ty suits the pre­sen­ta­tion style of each play to the script and there are love­ly moments in each play that had to be facil­i­tat­ed by a direc­tor. Present in each play is a cho­rus. They are on stage for a lot of the time. Occa­sion­al­ly an indi­vid­ual will come to the fore then dis­ap­pear back into the mass. They have been well drilled by the chore­o­graph­ic team of Reuben But­ler, Jere­my Davis, Kim­ber­ly Skip­per, Manuel Solomon (with ele­ments in The Ragged chore­o­graphed by Feet with Heat and Tanemahuta Gray), and it shows. The cho­rus are crisp when they need to be, flu­id, intense, gen­tle, threat­en­ing, trans­for­ma­tive. It is a gen­uine treat to watch them work. Pro­duc­tion Design­er Tony De Gol­di has designed a mod­est­ly ele­gant set with com­mon ele­ments through­out the series. Cred­it also to Stage Man­agers Zosia Lis and Ian Lesa with James Shires assist­ing, Pro­duc­tion Co-ordi­na­tor Sean Ash­ton-Peach, Tech­ni­cal Assis­tant Glenn Ash­worth, and Pro­duc­er Ane­ta Pond, as this pro­duc­tion is a huge under­tak­ing.

The first two plays, The Ragged and Dog & Bone, are the most text heavy.  The Ragged is set in 1840 and intro­duces us to the peo­ple who become the fam­i­ly whose for­tunes we fol­low through­out the plays. The first set­tler ships have arrived and are look­ing to set­tle. How­ev­er the land promised to them is already occu­pied by local Māori. The play clear­ly delin­eates between the Māori and Pāke­hā worlds at that time and dynam­i­cal­ly shows the dif­fer­ing opin­ions of those who lived in them. Ter­ri­ble actions are tak­en with the cor­re­spond­ing utu match­ing that hor­ror. Strong per­for­mances from Matthew Dus­sler, Jim Mori­ar­ty, Kim­ber­ley Skip­per, Jere­my Davis and Noel Hayvice anchor the wide rang­ing sto­ry while Tamati Mori­ar­ty and Hari­a­ta Mori­ar­ty are the impact play­ers in this piece. Dog & Bone is set in 1869 and focus­es on the New Zealand Wars and the impact it had on fam­i­lies. Two broth­ers are on oppo­site sides of the war. One has joined Ngāti Ruanui in Tarana­ki to fight British troops; the oth­er is a scout for those troops. This play is also where Pearse-Otene starts to intro­duce lay­ers of real­i­ty into the series. Sol­id per­for­mances from the main fam­i­ly — Manuel Solomon, Reuben But­ler, Greer Phillips, Ralph John­son, Matthew Dus­sler – are matched by their vis­i­tors – Iso­bel Mebus, Uni­ty Brown, Hari­a­ta Mori­ar­ty, Mearn Hous­ton, Louis Tait, Dylan Fa’atui. Nova Ware­ti­ni-Hewi­son and Mila Mori­ar­ty give an aston­ish­ing­ly uni­fied per­for­mance as a sin­gle char­ac­ter. The cho­rus play Ngati Irawaru and every time they appear (after the ini­tial scene) they are elec­tri­fy­ing. They also wear my favourite cos­tumes in the series. (Cos­tume design­er Cara Ware­ti­ni and Cos­tume assis­tant Elysia Ellis have done a real­ly good job on cos­tum­ing not only in the num­ber but also for the coher­ence of the design.)

The third and fourth plays, Pub­lic Works and The Lan­deaters, are more abstract, and play with ideas of real­i­ty, mem­o­ry, con­nec­tion, and rela­tion­ship. Light­ing and sound design are out­stand­ing in these two plays. (Light­ing design­er Lisa Maule, light­ing oper­a­tor Gio­van­ni Maule; Sound design Bus­by Pearse-Otene, sound oper­a­tor Helen Pearse-Otene.)  Pub­lic Works brings us to 1917 and Pass­chen­daele, Bel­gium. It focus­es on three main char­ac­ters who seem to be trapped in a no-man’s‑land which some­times unhooks from real­i­ty. Reuben But­ler, Manuel Solomon and Greer Phillips give great per­for­mances in this some­what com­pli­cat­ed sto­ry. (I have to con­fess this is my favourite of all the shows for its sheer bold­ness in script and stag­ing.) The final play, The Lan­deaters is set ‘the day after tomor­row’ and draws on threads from the pre­vi­ous plays. The home­stead is being torn down to make way for devel­op­ment and Viet­nam War vet­er­an Har­ry has decid­ed to dig in, in protest. Ralph John­son is bril­liant in the main role with Matthew Dus­sler bear­ing the brunt of his tom­fool­ery. They have a nice rap­port togeth­er. Kim­ber­ley Skip­per is exu­ber­ant, with Nicole Ash­ton, Mearn Hous­ton, and John Ulu strong in their char­ac­ters. The cho­rus are once again excel­lent.

There are many things I love about The Under­tow. It fea­tures a cast and crew that are multi­gen­er­a­tional. It uses te reo Māori and Eng­lish. It’s ambi­tious in both script and the­atri­cal style. There’s singing and danc­ing and it feels inte­grat­ed. It tells a sto­ry that is of this place. How­ev­er, it’s by no means per­fect. The accents can be dodgy. The nature of the per­for­mance space means that lines are often shout­ed and inex­pe­ri­enced actors some­times strug­gle to show the nuance of their char­ac­ters. The act­ing can seem arti­fi­cial as actors must face the audi­ence to deliv­er their lines or risk hav­ing them dis­ap­pear into the roof. In spite of that I rec­om­mend that you see it – prefer­ably in marathon on Sat­ur­days dur­ing the sea­son. Whichev­er way you choose to see it remem­ber to eat and drink before you go (Te Papa doesn’t have a snack or drinks bar*) and to take some­thing warm in case the air-con­di­tion­ing goes arc­tic like it did on open­ing night.

This is an impor­tant the­atri­cal event that is also incred­i­bly enter­tain­ing. Ngā mihinui ki te whā­nau a Te Rākau The­atre.

• The Under­tow, on at Sound­ings The­atre to Sun­day 29 Jan­u­ary 2017

* If you see the dou­ble bills dur­ing the week you’ll have 30–45 mins between shows which is enough time to exit the muse­um and pur­chase a drink and/or snack from the the­atre across the fore­court. You won’t be allowed to take any food or drink oth­er than water into Sound­ings so you’ll have to con­sume it before you go back.

Con­tent warn­ing after the jump.

At the the­atre awards last year James Nokise chal­lenged the­atre mak­ers to tell our sto­ries. In one of the audi­ence feed­back ses­sions Jim Mori­ar­ty referred to our ‘cul­tur­al amne­sia’ and said “Let’s keep on hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions about our past.” This means the script doesn’t shy away from the fol­low­ing: racism, mur­der, can­ni­bal­ism, child abuse, war, PTSD. It’s one of the rea­sons I’m rec­om­mend­ing the marathon – I think the series works bet­ter with each play to give the next one con­text.