Red Leap Theatre presents Kororāreka: The Bal­lad of Mag­gie Flynn, writ­ten by Paolo Rotondo and dir­ec­ted by Julie Nolan. The show is set in the era of the sign­ing of Te Tir­iti o Wait­angi, up at Kororāreka (present-day Rus­sell). Fic­tion­al­ised from the stor­ies of real life NZ women, it fol­lows Mag­gie Flynn, who leaves Ire­land a con­vict and arrives in Kororāreka the cap­tain of a whal­ing ship. When bury­ing her hus­band on the shores of this land she is cap­tured by a Māori chief and becomes his mōkai, a prestige slave more akin to a pet. Her for­tune con­tin­ues to twist and turn until one day cul­ture and his­tory col­lide and her ulti­mate undo­ing is the very world she sought to escape.

This work is a leg­acy to the women in our past, the ones often too wild to be cap­tured by his­tory books. Rotondo says ““Start­ing with my moth­er, this story is a fic­tion­al­ised homage to the strength, power, tough­ness, resi­li­ence and wit that exists in the char­ac­ter of the New Zea­l­and woman.  I do not believe that Kate Shep­pard, Helen Clarke, Lorde or Elean­or Cat­ton, are excep­tions to the rule, in fact they are a product of a long line of power­ful women.”

(Use the code MAGGIE to get $10 off adult tick­ets)