Woman holding a a black chicken. They both look towards the camera.Still Life with Chick­ens is com­ing to Wel­ling­ton this month after sea­sons in Auck­land and Palmer­ston North. A simple story about an older woman dis­cov­er­ing a naughty chick­en invad­ing her garden it becomes a beau­ti­ful and funny play about loneli­ness and the resi­li­ence of com­munit­ies.

Act­or & pup­pet­eer Haanz Fa’avae-Jackson answered some ques­tions about the show.

“The cast con­sists of one act­or, Gor­etti Chad­wick, who plays the role of ‘Mama’, and there’s me, the chick­en pup­pet­eer. Still Life With Chick­ens was writ­ten by D. F. Mamea, and dir­ec­ted by Fas­itua Amosa.” In 2017 Still Life with Chick­ens won the Adam NZ play award and the Play­mar­ket Best Play by a Pasi­fika Play­wright. “This show was inspired by D. F. Mamea’s moth­er, who just loves her garden. Every morn­ing, she would bring her pump­kin out­side, so it could enjoy the day along with her – and she’d take it back inside with her at the end of the day. The fam­ily had watched their moth­er con­tin­ue this routine, and real­ised that Mama needed some­thing to love – so they got her chick­ens. This show plays on loneli­ness, and we get to watch this 80 year old woman find joy in the smal­lest things, after all her chil­dren have left home to live lives of their own. “

“I hope it reminds [the audi­ence] that our eld­erly aren’t around forever. They raise us, teach us all we need to know to ven­ture this world and to chase our dreams. Yet when we do end up becom­ing inde­pend­ent adults & chas­ing our dreams, we leave them, and we don’t fully grasp how much it affects them until we of course exper­i­ence it ourselves in the for­mid­able future. They’re our treas­ure of today, full of stor­ies and memor­ies, and I hope this show inspires our audi­ences to pay more fre­quent vis­its to their par­ents & grand­par­ents.” Fa’avae-Jackson sug­gests an intergen­er­a­tion­al vis­it to the theatre. “Of all the audi­ences we’ve had so far, the eld­erly have been the best. Meet­ing them after the show and just see­ing the com­pas­sion in their eyes is just gold.  It’s both heart­warm­ing and hil­ari­ous. A def­in­ite tear jerker. The show is just under an hour, so it’s a com­fort­able length to enjoy.” Suit­able for ages 10 years old and up. “A lovely show the whole fam­ily could enjoy.”