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.