Ana­hera is the new play from Emma Kin­ane. Described as an “enthralling mix of an intense miss­ing child drama and a behind-closed-doors look at New Zealand’s social ser­vices” it’s a con­tem­por­ary domest­ic thrill­er about a strug­gling Kiwi fam­ily and how one woman mak­ing a stand could make all the dif­fer­ence. A final­ist in last year’s Adam New Zea­l­and Play Awards, it opens at Circa Theatre on Sat­urday. The team behind the show talked to us about it.

“Ana­hera was giv­en a 2‑week work­shop cour­tesy of Auck­land Theatre Company’s The Next Stage ini­ti­at­ive, and Katie Wolfe was the dir­ect­or who bril­liantly helmed that work­shop per­form­ance. When writer Emma Kin­ane decided to pitch the play to Circa, she asked Katie if she’d like to dir­ect it again, and since then she has gathered a won­der­ful group of people – a real mix of Auck­land and Wel­ling­ton in the cre­at­ive team work­ing on Ana­hera. Jac­queline Nairn and Neill Rea will be famil­i­ar to audi­ences from their work on Short­land Street and The Broken­wood Mys­ter­ies, and they have brought their abso­lute A‑games to the char­ac­ters of Liz and Peter, whose child has gone miss­ing. Wel­ling­ton audi­ences will already know Nee­nah Dekkars-Reihana, Simon Leary and Susie Berry. This fant­ast­ic trio uprooted them­selves to rehearse the play in Auck­land last month and now they’ve wel­comed the Auck­land con­tin­gent back here, and our team now also includes Auck­land-based Mark McIntyre who has designed a starkly evoc­at­ive set, stun­ningly lit by Lisa Maule, and oper­ated by Bon­nie Judkins.”

Play­wright Emma Kin­ane con­tin­ues: “Ana­hera was inspired by my daugh­ter Claire’s teen­age rage over a school pro­ject. She ran­ted that stat­ist­ics tell one story, but the media presents us with a totally dif­fer­ent, false ste­reo­type. An idea star­ted to form in my mind, but it took a long time to come into focus. And once I star­ted the play, I tried really hard to stop writ­ing it – about five times. The more I got into the sub­ject mat­ter, the more I wanted to chuck it in and write a com­edy about fluffy bun­nies, but Ana­hera kept call­ing and wouldn’t let me give up on her. Each time I tried to walk away, Ana­hera the play took a stand and made me keep writ­ing, just as Ana­hera the char­ac­ter takes a stand for the Hunters.”

”I set this play in two dif­fer­ent time peri­ods because the show is aimed at par­ents of chil­dren, but also at the chil­dren who then become par­ents, or who are likely to become par­ents. Every­one has been a child, and most of us go on to be par­ents. Ideally the audi­ence will relate to char­ac­ters in both time set­tings – the chil­dren and then the adults (and par­ents) they become. The con­ver­sa­tions that I hope will spring up around this play con­cern all of us.”

 “I would love to hear that the audi­ence are enga­ging in intense, won­der­ful, soul-search­ing con­ver­sa­tions in the bar after the show. I think people will be moved by the events in the play, but I’m also hop­ing that they will take a moment to peer under the sur­face, to check their own actions and assump­tions in their own lives and rela­tion­ships. I have delib­er­ately not answered many of the ques­tions that are raised by the sub­ject mat­ter, because I want people to have those con­ver­sa­tions after the show. I hope they leave the theatre with ques­tions and a sense of recog­ni­tion and a desire to effect change.”

  • Ana­hera, on at Circa Theatre 9 Septem­ber – 7 Octo­ber 2017

A per­fect life, a per­fect secret.

We’re all hid­ing some­thing.

Liz and Peter Hunter have it all. A great mar­riage, suc­cess­ful careers, a beau­ti­ful house and two won­der­ful chil­dren.

Until their son Harry goes miss­ing.

Dis­traught, they wait for news from the police, sup­por­ted by social work­er Ana­hera. As the hours pass and every­one is pushed bey­ond their lim­its, Ana­hera must make a stand. But is it already too late? Can Ana­hera save any­one?