the
Pohutukawa
Tree
season of
by bruce mason
Education
Pack
Celebrating great
New Zealand
stories
New Zealand Post is proud to
be supporting this season of
THE POHUTUKAWA TREE.
contents
6-9:
Synopsis
10-12:
Growing THE POHUTUKAWA TREE: Directors’ notes
13-16:
Designing THE POHUTUKAWA TREE
17:
Putting it together: Production Timeline
18-19:
We're also proud to be assisting in the
development and distribution of an
education pack for the play for every
high school in Auckland.
THE POHUTUKAWA TREE: Characters
It is also free to download at
www.atc.co.nz/educationunit/resources
About Bruce Mason
20-23:
Interview with the cast
24-28:
29-30:
The ground of THE POHUTUKAWA TREE: New Zealand in the 1940s and 50s
Proudly supporting New Zealand communities
VENUE: Maidment Theatre, Alfred Street, Auckland City
SCHOOLS’ PERFORMANCES: 8 September 6.30pm, 17 and 24 September 11am
RUNNING TIME: 2 hours and 20 minutes, including an interval
SUITABILITY: This production is most suitable for Year Levels 11, 12 and 13
PLEASE NOTE:
»Schools’ performances are followed by a Q&A Forum immediately after the performance in the theatre lasting for
20 – 30 minutes.
»During school matinees, the refreshments bar at the theatre may be closed. We recommend students bring lunch
and something to drink with them, to follow their visit, but eating and drinking IN THE THEATRE is prohibited.
»Please make sure all cellphones are turned off prior to the performance and, if possible, please don’t bring school
bags to the theatre.
3
the
Pohutukawa
Tree
season of
by bruce mason
cast
Aroha Mataira — Rena Owen Queenie Mataira — Maria Walker
Johnny Mataira — Tiare Tawera Mrs Atkinson — Catherine Wilkin
Mr Atkinson — Peter McCauley Sylvia Atkinson — Fern Sutherland
Roy McDowell — Richard Knowles Rev Athol Sedgwick — Edwin Wright
George Rawlings / Sergeant Robinson — Craig Geenty
Claude Johnson — Michael Keir-Morrissey Mrs Johnson — Hera Dunleavy
Dr Lomas — Stuart Devenie
CREATIVE
Direction — Colin McColl Assistant Direction — Hera Dunleavy
Set and Lighting Design — Tony Rabbit Costume Design — Nic Smillie
Sound Design — John Gibson
Ngā mihi nui ki a koe e te whaea Esther Davis i āwhina mai, i tautoko mai i te kaupapa nei, otira i
a mātou katoa te whā nau Pohutukawa. Ngā mihi matihere.
PRODUCTION
Production Manager — Mark Gosling Technical Manager — Bonnie Burrill
Senior Stage Manager — Fern Christie Stage Manager — Mitchell Turei
Operator — Robert Hunte Properties Master — Bec Ehlers
Wardrobe Supervisor — Sophie Ham Set Construction — 2 Construct
Trainee Assistant Director — Pip Smith
EDUCATION PACK CREDITS
Researcher and writer — Amber McWilliams Editor — Lynne Cardy Additional writing by Vivienne Plumb
Production photography by Michael Smith Design images courtesy of Tony Rabbit and Nic Smillie
THE POHUTUKAWA TREE is the sixth Auckland Theatre Company production for 2009 and opened on 3 September 2009. THE POHUTUKAWA
TREE is approximately 150 minutes long with an interval. Please remember to switch off all mobile phones, pagers and watch alarms.
Synopsis
What happens
in the play
Act One
Scene One
Roy, a young Pakeha man visiting Te Parenga and working in the local pub, arrives at the Mataira family’s
house and meets Queenie. Queenie is cautious of the stranger, but Rob charms her and teaches her
to dance. The dance is interrupted by Reverend Sedgwick, Te Parenga’s new minister. Roy leaves and
Queenie tells Sedgwick that the Matairas are the only Maori family left in Te Parenga; the rest have gone
to Tamatea. Aroha arrives; Queenie is sent to the kitchen. Sedgwick reads Aroha a letter from the tribe
at Tamatea, asking him to make Aroha sell her land and come to Tamatea to lead her people. Aroha tells
Sedgwick that her grandfather, Whetumarama, fought off the Pakeha on this land and she will not leave
it. She became a Christian after Jesus told her in a dream to keep peace between Maori and Pakeha; now
the Mataira family tends the land for the Pakeha landowner, Mr Atkinson. Johnny, Aroha’s son, arrives on
Sylvia Atkinson’s horse. Sedgwick leaves and Aroha tells Johnny to look inside himself to find God. When
his mother leaves, Johnny reveals a stash of comic books and whisky. Mrs Atkinson and Sylvia arrive;
Aroha toasts Sylvia’s wedding the next day. Sylvia asks Johnny to look after her horse, Jezebel, and gives
Queenie some of her old dresses. The Matairas agree to help with the wedding preparations. Atkinson
arrives to hurry up his wife and daughter. Aroha speaks with him alone and asks for reassurance that he
does not want her land. He says he would need it only if he were to sell, and advises her not to live in
the past.
Scene Two
Next day, at the wedding, Claude Johnson describes how the Pakeha and the Atkinsons have transformed
Te Parenga into “rolling English countryside”. Atkinson talks of how proud he is to be a Kiwi and toasts
New Zealand. The guests don’t know the national anthem, but sing raucous popular songs as the cake is
cut, drowning out a hymn. The guests call on the Matairas to sing; Johnny won’t do the haka, but Queenie
starts singing a popular song. Aroha stops her and sings a Maori waiata, which is respectfully received.
The guests leave. Aroha finds Johnny is drunk; Atkinson defends him and they help Johnny off. Roy
comes in and gives Queenie a note, then leaves. Aroha and Queenie farewell Sylvia and begin clearing up.
6
Act Two
Scene One
Three months later, Johnny is alone at home. He draws, drinks whisky and pretends to be Robin Hood
using Whetumarama’s taiaha as a prop. Aroha arrives and tells him off for playing with the taiaha,
chewing gum and reading rubbish. Johnny says he is upset that Sylvia wants Jezebel back. Aroha tells
him to be strong and makes him read from the Bible. Queenie arrives from visiting the doctor; she is
pregnant to Roy. Aroha is furious. Johnny goes to get Roy and Mr Sedgwick. Aroha says Queenie must
marry Roy; Queenie wants a white wedding and Aroha says it is out of the question. The men arrive.
Reverend Sedgwick will arrange a marriage licence but refuses Queenie’s request for a white wedding.
Roy refuses to marry Queenie and eventually admits it is because she is Maori. He leaves. Aroha says
Queenie must go to Tamatea and not come back. Queenie declares she will be okay alone. Sedgwick
advises Aroha to pray for guidance, and tells them to keep their chins up. Johnny seizes the taiaha and
gallops off into the night.
7
Scene Two
Next morning, Mr Atkinson arrives at the house. Queenie has packed; Aroha is out looking for Johnny,
who has not come home. Sergeant Robinson arrives and says Johnny has destroyed the local church.
Aroha arrives and hears the story. She sees Queenie off to Tamatea, then gets money for bail. Atkinson
and Robinson discuss the situation. Johnny arrives. The hearing is organised; Atkinson and Robinson
leave. Johnny tells Aroha he wrecked the church because he was angry at Jesus for not healing their
wounds. Aroha is distraught and calls on Jesus, holding the taiaha.
Scene Three
Some months later, Mrs Atkinson and Dr Lomas are at the Mataira’s house, caring for Aroha, who has lost
the will to live. Sedgwick arrives; he has secured the release of Johnny from the reformatory and they
have been to Tamatea together. Sedgwick tells them Queenie had her white wedding, and that the tribe
has embraced Queenie and Johnny. He describes the vitality of the Tamatea community, and wants to
convince Aroha to go there. Mrs Atkinson admires the strength of Aroha’s Christianity. Sedgwick says
Aroha is a “battlefield” between Christ and Whetumarama and needs to learn to live in the “little world”.
Mrs Atkinson acknowledges Aroha’s nobility and her own smallness. Atkinson arrives and says he is going
to sell his land and wants to include Aroha’s in the package. Aroha appears and commands them to leave
the house. Johnny arrives and asks them to leave. They do. Aroha sends Johnny away too. Sedgwick
comes back and asks why. Aroha tells him she has willed her own death and does not want Johnny to see
her die. She says Christ has failed her. Sedgwick advises she abandon her pride and go to Tamatea to be
with her family and her people. She refuses and chooses to be “true to her past”. Sedgwick leaves. Aroha
dies. Two Maori women appear to mourn her.
8
About THE POHUTUKAWA TREE
»
Mason says the theme of the play was in his mind “for nearly 10 years”.
»The play was based on a real event in the lives of a Maori family called Karani, whom Mason
met when he was working in an orchard in Tauranga. The son, Eru, broke into the local cinema
and left the message “Robin Hood was here”. When Eru went to prison, Mason found Eru’s
secret stash of drawings. Eru’s mother died within six months; Mason says “she had died
of grief”.
»
The whole play was rewritten 12 times; some passages were rewritten 50 times.
»The play was first performed as a workshop production in 1957 by the New Zealand Players,
under the leadership of Richard and Edith Campion. It was made into a BBC TV play in 1959
and a radio play in 1960.
9
Growing The
Pohutukawa
Tree
Director Colin McColl talks about the play,
its themes and the style of the production.
I think it’s all about
change; it’s all
about one’s ability or
inability to change
and, if you change,
what is lost – at what
cost do you change?
Background
Colin McColl has always
admired Bruce Mason’s passion
for New Zealand theatre. In
programming THE POHUTUKAWA
TREE, Colin demonstrates the
same commitment to fostering
New Zealand work. “At Auckland
Theatre Company, we take
pride in producing quality
productions of quality plays,
and THE POHUTUKAWA TREE
is a quality New Zealand play
which is very rarely performed. I
believe we have a responsibility,
if we’re interested in some sort
of continuance of the theatre
profession in New Zealand and
the history of playwriting in
New Zealand, to keep these
plays alive: they have to have
performance occasionally.”
10
Themes
Doing a production of THE
POHUTUKAWA TREE in
2009 provides a wonderful
opportunity to examine the
shifts in New Zealand society
over time. Colin’s conversations
with Rena Owen, playing
Aroha, highlighted some of the
challenges specific to Maori in
the 1950s. “She said ‘I remember
my old aunties saying to me that
there’s a way that you have to
behave in the Pakeha world’.” As
Colin understands it, if you were
Maori “you had to be exemplary,
really, because you felt a sense
of inferiority. Children were
being denied speaking their
language in the schools, Maori
women were not allowed to
breastfeed their babies – there
was a whole kind of squeezing
out of the culture, and to try
and keep your pride and sense
of well-being with all that was
hard, I think.”
Colin contrasts that repression
of the culture with the
experience he and the cast
have had during the lead-up
to this production. “Yesterday,
we went and did a powhiri. We
were welcomed onto the marae
up at Orakei by Ngati Whatua.
Tiare, who’s playing Johnny in
the play and is very rich in his
tikanga Maori, spoke for us so
fantastically – and to see all
those young kids that they had
at the marae, who are all so
steeped in their Maoritanga,
is fantastic. So the whole
renaissance that started in the
1970s means that we look at it in
a whole other way.”
For Colin, the play not only
reflects changes in society, but
directly addresses the issue
of transition at this point in
New Zealand’s history. All the
characters are trying to come
to terms with a world in flux. “I
think it’s all about change; it’s
all about one’s ability or inability
to change and, if you change,
what is lost – at what cost do
you change?” Colin feels that
Bruce Mason sums up many of
the issues of the period in the
play: “I think he really believed
that through the process of
dramatic art he could express
something of the dilemmas that
were happening in New Zealand
at the time in Maori-Pakeha
relationships.”
Characters
Aroha’s complexity means that
Rena has had to work together
with the director to bring out the
many facets of her character.
As Colin explains, “she’s a
woman with great mana and
pride and she has some almost
Shakespearean moments. Rena
has got to find it in herself
to go from the everyday, the
colloquial, into that rhetorical
language.” Nowhere is the
contrast more evident than at
the end of the play, with Aroha’s
willed decline. “That’s a little
bit of a worry of Rena’s – that
it happens so quickly. In one
act she’s so strong, and in the
next she’s gone. But it’s a very
Maori thing, you know. Not at
all unusual. To the Maori actors,
when we talk about it, it’s not at
all strange.”
For Johnny and Queenie, the
issue of change is a different one
– balancing a Maori heritage that
they know only through parental
legend with the day-to-day
realities of the modern world.
As Colin has it, “They kind of
know instinctively, particularly
Johnny, where they’ve come
from, but because mum is
getting them to strive in a white
man’s world and because they’re
cut off from their iwi, they’ve
got no chance to practise or
express all those things. I like to
think that it’s there in Johnny.
It’s kind of utu for the family
when he goes to the church:
misplaced, but well-intentioned.
Queenie is a different kettle of
fish; she represents the urban
drift, wanting all the things
of modern life. She wants to
dance – she wants the dance
hall, for sure.” Colin admires
Mason’s cleverness in presenting
Queenie as a kind of contested
site, just like the New Zealand
land. “Roy getting her pregnant
– he colonises her the way that
the country’s been colonised.”
It is not only the Matairas who
are seen to struggle with their
roles in this time of transition;
Pakeha characters likewise have
to adapt to a changing world.
Take, for instance, Reverend
Sedgwick: “He’s an interesting
character, because he’s a man
who is young, he’s been in the
war as a bomber pilot, he’s
realised that there’s got to
be something else, and he’s
joined, we imagine, the Anglican
church, trained as a minister,
but he’s got a past really. I think
that he’s quite generous in his
overview of the whole thing. He
tries to deal with Queenie being
pregnant to Roy in a sensible
way. We have quite a young
actor (Edwin Wright) playing
him. It would be different if you
had an older actor playing him;
I think it’s important that he’s
young. He’s been put in this
parish in place of the old priest
because it’s a community on
the cusp of change. It’s going to
have an explosion of population
with the returned servicemen
and young families, and they
need a young priest in this
parish who can respond to kids.
And he’s the one who stands
up to Aroha. He’s trying to get
her to be not so rigid. So he’s
in a state of transition too, in
learning about a new country,
because I don’t think he’s been
in New Zealand for very long.”
Language
One of the ways to show the
distinction between the Maori
and Pakeha worlds is in the way
the characters use te reo Maori.
11
Colin explains: “We talked a lot
about how the Pakeha should
pronounce the Maori. Well,
they should mispronounce
it: Ti PaRINGa, rather than Te
Parenga.” However, there are
degrees of mispronunciation,
and Colin aims to use
differences in pronunciation to
make distinctions between the
various attitudes to the Maori.
Sedgwick, for example, will try
harder to get the pronunciation
right. As Colin puts it, “he’s
probably made more of an
effort; he’s maybe learned a bit
about Maori culture, but he kind
of pronounces it the way the
Queen does – carefully, but
not correctly!”
“The reclamation of
New Zealand speech
from the marsh of
slovenliness will be
accomplished, like
so much else in our
political lives, only by
the co-operation of
the Maori people. We
have not only smashed
their culture but daily
debase their tongue in
horrors like Wackouite
(Waikouaiti),
Teeekawatta, (Te
Kauwhata) and
Pycock (Paekakariki).”
BRUCE MASON
12
Style of production
In presenting the play, however,
director Colin McColl wants
to focus on the value of the
text rather than providing “an
oil painting of the 1950s”. This
means the production is not
naturalistic in its approach.
“The actors are very emotionally
engaged and at the same time
they’re examining the text, so
that audiences today can look
at the play and see that this is a
fantastic piece of New Zealand
writing from the 1950s; they can
look at it as a work of literature,
they can look at the issues
that are presented in the play,
they can laugh at bits of it if
they want to, whatever, so that
we just give ourselves a bit of
distance from it.” He goes on to
explain, “We’re not saying to the
audience ‘get lost in the world of
this play’, we’re just saying ‘look
at what’s going on between
these characters, look at the
way the story’s unfolding’.”
Eager to encourage the audience
to engage imaginatively with
the play, Colin has aimed for
a fairly minimalist approach
to the setting. “We thought it
was important to put some air
around it, so that we could all
bring our imaginations to work
on it, but we could also bring our
questioning minds to ask ‘Have
things changed? How have they
changed? Have they changed
that much, really?’ Hopefully the
production will set that sort of
furious debate going amongst
the audience at the end.”
Designing THE
POHUTUKAWA
TREE
The creative team for this
production – set and lighting
designer Tony Rabbit, costume
designer Nic Smillie and sound
designer John Gibson – work
with director Colin McColl to
make the production come to
life on the stage.
Theatre design is a process
of continual evolution. If THE
POHUTUKAWA TREE deals with
change, then the production
process likewise grapples with
changing ideas about how the
design can best support the
ideas of the play.
Overall production
concept
For this production of THE
POHUTUKAWA TREE, Colin’s
approach is to eliminate
most of what he calls the
“embellishments” of theatre.
“We talked a lot about how we
all create work, and we liked
the idea of that moment in the
rehearsal room, when you’re just
in the final runs of the play and
everyone’s imaginations are at
work. It’s absolutely electrifying.
And then in the theatre it gets
complicated by costumes and all
the paraphernalia of putting the
thing on stage – stage lighting,
and all of that. We wanted to get
that feeling of when the play is
pure, and everyone in the room
is contributing all their energy
and focus and concentration
on the work – on telling the
story. That is what we want to
try and create in the way that
we present this production,
so it’s clean and clear. When
you’re doing a run of the play
in rehearsals, everyone is very
respectful of what’s going on
on the floor. There’s a parallel
there with the marae. There’s
a protocol there, and there’s a
protocol in the rehearsal room,
we all like to think. You’re very
respectful of the speakers or
the people who are doing
the scene.”
13
Set
To preserve the sense of the
simplicity of the rehearsal room
within the theatre space was
the challenge for designer Tony
Rabbit:
“We aren’t trying to manipulate
the space or the story in any way
at all through the technology
of the theatre; it is just a clear
space, which, in a theatrical
sense, is as close as we can get
to a rehearsal room.”
The central acting area is made
of weathered boards, like those
you might see on an old house
in the countryside. Tony Rabbit
describes his inspiration, “It’s
always rimu, or some other
native timber; it’s gone grey,
and it’s slightly warped. It’s
a thing that’s honest, but it’s
weathered. That’s what this
stage is made out of.
The stage floor is made up of
these boards which gently slope
up to about the height of a table.
There’s a flat area on the top
about a metre wide, which offers
14
another level for the actors to
work on and then down behind
that there are steps. Behind
that is a wall four metres high
made of those same boards,
which stretches right across
the width of the stage. From the
audience’s point of view, the
playing space is just a wall
of wood.
We’ve created, if you like, this
landscape made out of a natural
material but that has been
shaped by man… it’s a kind of
inside/outside landscape.”
To complement the wooden
centre, the two side walls of the
theatre are also transformed.
On the right side of the stage,
there’s a crimson wall: “the
pohutukawa tree” represented
by colour alone. Tony Rabbit:
“There are no trees or leaves or
boughs to bang your head on
or any of that sort of stuff. The
wall goes all the way down, right
from upstage to right down past
the audience. It’s hardboard,
but it’s the reverse side of
hardboard, where it’s all kind of
mottled. It’s cardboard stuff and
the paint is dry-brushed over
that, so there’s a texture to it;
it’s not all solid colour”.
All the way round the stage is
a 900cm walkway, so when
an actor is going to make an
entrance they walk across the
walkway and as long as they’re
not on the wooden stage,
they’re not onstage, as it were.
But the audience can see them
coming in and getting ready for
whatever it is that they’re about
to do.
The aprons, on either side of
the stage, and the wall on stage
left, are unpainted tempered
hardwood, which is a browny
colour: a very fifties sort of
colour really, and quite earthy.”
Lighting
Costume
The use of the colours and
materials of the natural
landscape transformed by
people highlights the issues of
the play, while the extremely
simple structure highlights the
idea of the bare rehearsal room.
This is also reflected in the
lighting design as Tony explains:
Originally Nic Smillie, the
costume designer, had a very
strong idea about how to
achieve the “rehearsal room”
look and feel of the production
with the actors in civvies and
some iconic costume pieces to
tell the story where necessary:
for example, Sylvia would add
a veil in the wedding scene to
symbolise the fact that she’s
a bride. However, after more
discussion and the first costume
fittings, the design team had to
rethink this pared-back concept:
“We realised on Rabbit’s bare
set that we really did need to
speak a little louder with the
costumes, because there were
no other touchstones at all to
help tell the story. The actors
are visually the only vertical on
a horizontal stage and so the
shapes (as in the costumes on
the actors) need to be visually
strong and not in any way
confusing for the audience. Also,
with Rabbit’s simple lighting,
there is not any way to show
time and seasonal changes other
than through costume changes.”
(Nic Smillie)
“My idea about the lighting
is that it’s kind of like an
overcast day, so the lighting is
everywhere, but shadowless. It
is concentrated in the centre of
the stage, and that’s where it’s
brightest, and it falls off towards
the sides of the stage. There isn’t
any attempt to light the whole
stage, so actors move from an
area of full light into an area
where the light is less. The light
naturally falls off, like it does
in a room. There are very few
lighting changes through it. One
of the exceptions is the wedding
party, where we actually create
a hard square out of light which
is the marquee, and when you’re
in the light you’re in the marquee
and when you’re outside that
square of light you’re outside the
marquee. So we’ll see how that
goes – we’ll see how it runs out
in rehearsal.”
The design team then settled on
a late 1940s/early 1950s look.
Nic Smillie says: “It is slightly
poetic, in that there still will be
a base costume that is added
to – the odd jersey, coat, vest
and so on. However, there are
costume changes when they are
called for: Queenie, Sylvia (her
wedding dress is an important
emblem as it is something that
Queenie dreams of for herself)
and for Aroha.”
The colour palette is variations
of blue and grey, colours
that act as “a contrast to the
pohutukawa tree wall, but that
look great against the silvery
wood and the rest of the other
brown walls. I personally find it
always good to choose a defined
colour palette – it can make the
piece look more ‘considered’, it
is easy on the eye and nothing
jars (unless you want it to).”
15
Putting it
together
John Gibson –
The sound of THE
POHUTUKAWA TREE
Sound designer John Gibson
had to source a variety of music
to fit the feeling of the play and
the production: “Because the
setting is so simple, in some
ways the music has got to have
a real poetry about it to be part
of the piece. It’s a combination
of things that are totally of their
time – like the fifties songs – and
something which is timeless,
and really speaks in a poetic way
about the land and can talk to
the play.”
The following music features in
the play:
»A waiata, which is a quite
risqué love song, that Aroha
sings at the wedding.
»The cast singing the Lord’s
Prayer in te reo Maori at the
beginning of the show.
And John has sourced the work
of New Zealand composers
production time line
A professional theatre production is
a large-scale project that needs lots
of planning and preparation. Here’s a
rough time line for the production of
THE POHUTUKAWA TREE.
The company’s artistic director chooses the plays for the 2009 season. The plays are announced and a
season brochure printed to promote the plays.
and artists for the transitions
between scenes:
»Len Lye – “Flip and Two
Twisters” essentially a
recording of a Len Lye
sculpture featuring crashing
sounds and then silences.
»Douglas Lilburn’s electronic
music - “The Return” - a large
piece based on an Alastair Te
Ariki Campbell poem which
uses the sound of the sea and
natural bird sounds.
»One of the tracks from “Te Ku
Te Whe” by Hirini Melbourne
and Richard Nunns: “It was
the first recording of New
Zealand national instruments
which they’d made and were
playing. It’s changed the
whole face of New Zealand
music really, that recording.
So we’re using one of those
tracks as a lament.”
Branches of enquiry – design
»Write a list of all the props mentioned in the play. Then add extra props that are not
mentioned but that might add something to the play’s meaning. Choose five or six of the
props on your list, and describe or sketch what they should look like. Explain your decisions.
»Identify important elements of costume. How does a costume communicate information
about a character? What do you learn about each character from the costume elements used
in THE POHUTUKAWA TREE?
»What changes, if any, do you notice between the costume concept outlined here and the
costumes in the final production? Why do you think these changes were made?
»Try creating your own design for THE POHUTUKAWA TREE. Which elements of the text and
context would you emphasise? Follow the design process through from initial sketches to
creating a finished design (a set model, costume drawings with fabric samples, completed
props).
16
2008
June 2009
The first production meetings for THE POHUTUKAWA TREE are held. The director and designers get
together to discuss their approach to the play and to think about how it might look. Casting of the
production is completed.
July 2009
The designer and director agree on the basic features of the set and the designer prepares set drawings
for the set builders. Set ideas must then be costed to ensure they come in under budget. This takes about
five weeks. Modifications may be made to the set design at this point in negotiation with the set builders.
August 2009
Rehearsals begin, with some of the cast working with Colin on particular scenes. In mid-August, the full
cast and creative team come together for the first time at the read-through and design presentation.
Rehearsals continue throughout August, as the play is blocked, detailed, and finally run.
September 2009
The final days of August and first days of September are production week, when the show packs in to the
theatre. First set materials are delivered and the set is built. Costumes and props are delivered to the
theatre. Once the set is in place, the lights are rigged, then focused on the stage. Next comes the lighting
plot, when the lighting states and cues are decided and programmed into the lighting desk, and recorded
in the stage manager’s ‘book’. The first full rehearsal in the theatre is a technical rehearsal – a stop/start
run of the play to ensure all the lighting/props/scene changes etc work properly. Then there are several
dress rehearsals, followed by notes to improve technical or performance elements of the production.
Preview performances then allow the actors to test the show in front of a live audience. Finally, after
twelve weeks of production, the moment you’ve all been waiting for – opening night! The show will then
run for a further four weeks.
17
THE
POHUTUKAWA
TREE
Characters
Sergeant Robinson
– Pakeha,
Te Parenga’s
policeman
Serious and
conservative. The
“image of small
town authority”.
Roy McDowell
– Pakeha, young man, Queenie’s
lover
Charming, worldly. Attracted by
Queenie’s beauty and spirit, but
when she becomes pregnant,
refuses to marry her because
she is Maori.
Claude Johnson
– elderly, Pakeha, friend of the
Atkinsons
Dr Lomas
– elderly, Pakeha, Te
Parenga’s medical
doctor
Johnny Mataira
– 18, Maori, Aroha’s son
Young for his age. Likes
drawing, horses, and
pretending to be Robin Hood.
Works for the Atkinsons,
tending the orchard and caring
for Sylvia’s horse.
Reverend Athol
Sedgwick – 38, Pakeha,
Te Parenga’s minister
Ex-airforce pilot who
returned his medals
and became a minister
after recognising his
role in World War Two
as “mass murder”.
Aroha Mataira
– 60, Maori, widow, mother
of Queenie and Johnny,
granddaughter of chief
Whetumarama, leader of
Ngati Raukura
Cherishes the tribal land of Te
Parenga as sacred. Strongly
Christian. Disapproves of
popular Western culture
“trash” – modern music,
language and drinking.
18
A “large lady”. Pushed into
singing at the wedding by
her husband; drowned out
by other guests.
Knowledgable. Has
been in Te Parenga
for 40 years and
is familiar with
Maori and Pakeha
communities; was
present at the births
of all the younger
characters.
Queenie Mataira
– 17, Maori, Aroha’s
daughter
Girlish, romantic.
Loves dancing, new
clothes, excitement.
Frustrated by her
mother’s prohibitions
and strictness. Has
an affair and falls
pregnant to Roy.
Jokey and bluff. Real-estate
agent who encourages Clive
Atkinson to sell his land at
Te Parenga.
Mrs Johnson
– Pakeha, Claude’s wife
Sylvia Atkinson
– 20, Pakeha, daughter of Mr
and Mrs Atkinson
George Rawlings
– Pakeha, marries Sylvia
Atkinson
Marries George Rawlings.
Is dismissive of the social
convention of the white
wedding but embarks on a
conventional life of marriage
and children.
Former war pilot,
described as “a very nice,
solid young man” by
Mrs Atkinson.
Two Maori women
Clive Atkinson
– Pakeha, Sylvia’s father, married
to Mrs Atkinson. Employer of the
Mataira family
Literally Aroha’s cousins,
but also symbolic figures.
Appear at the end of the
play to mourn Aroha’s
death.
Landowner. Initially proud of his
family connection with Te Parenga,
but agrees to sell the land as soon
as it becomes unprofitable. Believes
land must pay or it is useless.
Mrs Atkinson
– Pakeha, Sylvia’s mother,
married to Clive Atkinson
Begins as a conventional
society woman concerned
with her daughter’s
wedding and her household.
Recognises Aroha as “great”
and herself as “small” by the
play’s end.
19
Q& A
Amber McWilliams talked with
actors Rena Owen (Aroha) and
Maria Walker (Queenie) about
their differing approaches
to the challenge of playing
characters from another era.
What steps did you take to
prepare for playing your
character?
Rena: I start with the script.
There’s a simple process one
can do: to go through your script
and see what your character
says about herself, what others
say about her and what she says
about others. So I start with
the blueprint. Once I have all
the information I need from the
writer, then I will go outward.
I approach every character
differently; I work very
intuitively. Some things that may
work for some characters don’t
work for others. With Aroha,
I have a resource in terms of
my grandmother and my own
aunties; I think a lot about them
and the way they were incredibly
strict, the way they held
themselves, the way they spoke.
Understanding the job as
an actor means having as a
premise, “Who am I? And how
did I get to be this way?” A
character’s life does not begin
at the beginning of a stage
play it begins the day they’re
20
born. I’m a big believer in
character history and often I
write entire autobiographies for
my character. How well rooted
you are in your character’s
world, how well you know your
character – that’s how good
you’re going to be. That’s what
you bring on stage with you.
Rehearsals are a place for
discovery, trying different
things. We’re very lucky as
actors because it’s a great
script; they’re very clearly
defined characters. You see
who they are. It’s all there on
the page.
Maria: I read the script as
many times as I can before the
rehearsals.
Queenie is so naive, and I don’t
really understand that naivety,
because she is only 17 – she’s 11
years my junior – so I have to go
backwards, and remember what
it was like when I first fell in love,
and how light on your feet
that feels.
Movement’s a big thing for
me. Queenie is very playful, so
there’s a lot of movement that
goes with that; she dances a lot
and she’s also very kind of up in
her head.
I don’t have a set process,
because that can bore me. So
there are certain choices that
I’m still making about her, to
bridge that gap from me to her.
I’ll discover them as I go.
When you are playing a
character not of your own time,
how do you research the era?
Rena: One thing I have to do
is some research around how
kids were very different back
then. They communicated
entirely differently to how kids
communicate today. There was
more formality to people. It
wasn’t as casual as it is today.
I remember how it was being a
little girl in the 1970s, and it was
a lot more formal than it is now,
so in the 1950s it must have been
even more formal. They [Aroha’s
children] have been brought up
with manners, which are wasted.
I think teenage pregnancies
are wasted. I think that’s one
of the messages still relevant
today: the price of teenage sex is
teenage pregnancy.
Maria: In terms of her
[Queenie’s] biggest want, which
is to get married and have
children – she does. She gets
what she wants.
Rena: She doesn’t get the
Sylvia Atkinson wedding, which
is the virgin bride, the big
white dress. That was a taboo,
getting pregnant before you got
married; that’s why you couldn’t
have the formal wedding, once
you were no longer a virgin.
That’s what I’m talking about too
– the differences between now
and then. There was a shame, a
lot of shame, attached to girls
getting pregnant.
Maria: It’s great that she isn’t
sent away to a home to have
the baby.
Rena: She gets sent to her
family; that happened all
the time. It was kept within
the family.
Maria: My family’s history is
like that. So I’ve been talking
a lot to them about it as well,
and using photographs of them
when they were young. It was
a different world, a different
generation. That’s what I’m
trying to understand: talking to
my mother more, talking to older
women, because everything was
traditional and it was all about
etiquette, and you were well
behaved and well mannered.
Don’t swear, don’t sit there
cross-legged, and don’t have
your skirt above your knee – so
many little things that we don’t
have now. Even in terms of a
romance now, “dating” is almost
unheard of in my generation.
We’re very different, in terms
of who I am and who Queenie
is, but I love it. I get to take a
glimpse back into time through
her, and have all of those values
and morals and teachings. Even
understanding Maoritanga now
– I was brought up in suburbia
so I had teacups and saucers
on the Dutch side and hangis on
the Maori side; I had the best
of both worlds. I understand
a lot of things too: my mother
was a Catholic, my father was
a Ratana and, when they met,
they met through Christianity.
21
My father lost his language, and
my mother lost her language as
well, because they were initially
on their own and were separated
from their families, because
both of their families were
very upset about their mixed
marriage – they were the first of
both families to get married to
the opposite race.
In the 1950s, you couldn’t speak
about things that we now openly
talk about: sex, and marriage,
and STDS. Avenues to get
information weren’t as easily
explored as they are today. I
can Google something, or just
call someone up! I’ve Googled
a lot of [images of] what they
would wear back then, in terms
of uniforms and [in rehearsal]
it’s been suggested that I should
read a book called Maori Girl,
by Noel Hilliard because it was
written, I think, in that time.
How would you describe your
character?
What is your training and
background?
Rena [of Aroha]: She’s stoic,
she’s staunch, she’s black and
white, she’s a very principled
woman – has very high
scruples, she’s proud, she’s
uncompromising. There’s a lot
of aroha in her, but it’s kind of
buried beneath a façade really.
She’s well intentioned: she wants
the best for her children; she
doesn’t want them to waste their
lives. She doesn’t want them to
be wayward. She has ambition
for her children: they just have
no ambition for themselves.
Rena: I trained in London and
did my first professional play
there in 1986. I wrote stage plays
and acted in them. I came back
at the end of the 1980s and was
instrumental in setting up Maori
theatre in Wellington; I did a lot
of international tours – Adelaide
Festival, Edinburgh Festival. I
did 10 years of theatre before
I even started doing camera
work. That was my first love, the
theatre. Then, WARRIORS took
me into a whole different world,
mostly a lot of TV and film.
Maria [of Queenie]: She’s
mercurial, she’s beautiful, she’s
so wonderfully frivolous and
she’s so passionate about what
she wants. She’s the life-force of
the play. She’s in love with Roy –
totally, absolutely besotted. And
she really doesn’t understand
the circumstances she’s put
herself in, and that’s the naivety
I’m talking about – she has no
idea. She’s full of wonderment;
she’s a big daydreamer. She’s so
innocent. It’s not that Queenie
is uneducated, because she has
been taught the values of both
Maoridom and Christianity but
she’s also got her own standing
ground. She becomes quite
firm. She sticks up for herself in
the end. I think she enters into
womanhood, and it’s quite a
strengthening thing.
I’ve always been a writer; I was
first published when I was eight.
I’m a published playwright, and
during the last five years I’ve
been writing screenplays and
doing some producing. I’m going
to be directing my first film
next year.
Maria: I travelled a lot, then I
studied Performing Arts at Te
Wananga o Aotearoa in Porirua
for a year and a tutor from there
said I should audition for drama
school. I tried the first time and
didn’t get in. Then I left it for two
years and decided I was going to
prove them otherwise! I scored
a couple of plays - HINEPO, THE
PROPHET and THE BACH for
Auckland Theatre Company, and
then I just felt “if it’s going to be
dribs and drabs like this, it’s
not enough”.
I decided to try again for Toi
Whakaari and then they let me
come. I did that for three years
and finished in November.
Graduating has just opened
so many doors: feature films,
a couple of shorts this year. I
went straight off to Radio New
Zealand with five others from
my class, wrote a play, recorded
it – and now I’m here. I’m still
learning.
Rena: I think it’s really important
to get to who you’re truly are,
your true authentic self. Every
character I played – it doesn’t
matter what medium – there
was something for me to learn
about myself through that
character’s journey. It’s good to
get solid training, because it’s a
craft, it’s a skill. Natural instinct
and intuition will take you so far,
but you have to have a craft to
fall back on, especially in theatre
when you’re doing it every night.
You’ve got to have that marriage
of talent and technique. I’ve
always had a love for learning
and a hunger to learn, and I’ve
never thought I was too good
to learn.
Maria: My father says “if you
have a teachable spirit, you
can achieve anything.” It’s an
exciting time for me – it’s new,
it’s fresh.
“Aroha has become
more pakeha than the
pakeha, accepting
their standards
of behaviour and
deportment with a
literal severity that few
pakehas now emulate.
Queenie, warm,
affectionate, pleasureseeking, chafes under
the arbitrary chastity
on which her mother
insists.”
“Aroha, the Maori
word for ‘love’, is
the most prominent
quality lacking in Mrs
Mataira’s attenuated
Christianity.”
HOWARD McNAUGHTON
BRUCE MASON
Branches of enquiry – performing a role
Getting to grips with a character means looking at him/her from more than one point of view. The
following questions might be helpful as a starting point:
»
How is the character described in the stage directions?
»What does the character say about himself/herself? Do you believe him/her? What does he/
she say about others?
»What do other characters say about your character? Might these other characters be
inaccurate (deliberately or unconsciously) in their assessment of your character? Why?
»How does your character behave? What are his/her actions during the play? How might these
actions reveal his/her attitudes and values?
»What ideas does your character represent? (Remember, a character is not a person – a
character is a fictional creation the author uses to convey ideas!)
22
23
ABOUT
BRUCE
MASON
1.
Bruce Mason’s life was lived
in the theatre, but his plays
showed his understanding of
the wider world. Here are some
of his key life experiences.
Childhood
Bruce Edward George Mason
was born in Wellington on 28
September 1921. In 1927 his family
moved to Takapuna in Auckland,
and he attended Belmont Primary
School and Takapuna Grammar.
The family returned to Wellington
in 1937, where Bruce went to
Wellington College.
Early years and war
service
After finishing school, Bruce
spent a year as a law clerk in
Wellington, before enrolling at
Wellington Teachers’ College
in 1940. His studies were
interrupted by war service; he
served in the New Zealand
Army and in the Naval
Volunteer Reserve.
Married man
In 1945, Bruce returned to New
Zealand from naval service
abroad. He graduated from
Wellington Teachers’ College and
married Diana Shaw, a doctor and
obstetrician. From 1946 to 1948,
24
Bruce was a research assistant
at the War History Branch in
Wellington; his first short story
was published in Landfall in 1947.
He was a manuscript curator at
the Alexander Turnbull Library in
1948 and 1949.
Theatrical beginnings
From 1948 to 1960, Bruce
was the president, secretary
and a committee member of
Unity Theatre in Wellingon.
However, he was not always in
the city: in 1949, the Masons
went to England, where they
shared a house with Richard
and Edith Campion and Bruce
taught at a drama school. He
also considered a career as a
concert pianist. The Masons’
first daughter Belinda was born
in 1949.
The playwright and
critic in New Zealand
In 1951, the Masons had a son,
Julian, and returned to live in
New Zealand. Bruce worked as
the Public Relations Officer for
the New Zealand Forest Service.
2.
In 1953, his plays THE BONDS
OF LOVE and THE EVENING
POST were produced at Unity
Theatre and won prizes in the
British Drama League Playwriting
Competition. In 1954, his
daughter Rebecca was born and
THE LICENSED VICTUALLER, a
farcical operetta written for the
Wainuiomata Women’s Institute,
won the B-Grade Section of the
British Drama League Festival.
From 1955 to 1961, Bruce was the
radio critic for the New Zealand
Listener; from 1958 to 1960 he
was also the drama critic for The
Dominion newspaper.
Playwriting gathers
momentum
A string of plays was written and
produced: THE POHUTUKAWA
TREE (1957), which was
performed on BBC TV in 1959
and made into a radio play in
1960; THEATRE IN DANGER (1957)
with John Pocock; BIRDS IN THE
WILDERNESS (1958), which won
the Auckland Festival Society
National Playwriting Competition;
THE END OF THE GOLDEN
WEATHER (1959), a solo show
which Bruce also performed, and
which toured throughout New
Zealand from 1959 to 1962. Bruce
also directed numerous plays
and operas during this time.
Peak powers – the
1960s and 1970s
Bruce continued his active
contribution to the performing
arts in many ways. As writer
and critic, he was the editor
of Te Ao Hou (1960 – 1961), a
record critic (1961 – 1962) and
music critic (1964 – 1969) for the
New Zealand Listener, editor
of Act drama magazine (1967 –
1970) and drama critic for The
Dominion (1973 – 1978). As a
playwright, he wrote WE DON’T
WANT YOUR SORT HERE (1961),
AWATEA (1965), THE EVENING
PAPER (1965), THE COUNSELS OF
THE WOOD (1965), THE WATERS
OF SILENCE (1965), THE HAND
ON THE RAIL (1967), HONGI
(1971), ZERO INN (1970), NOT
CHRISTMAS, BUT GUY FAWKES
(1976), COURTING BLACKBIRD
(1976) and BLOOD OF THE LAMB
(1980). The majority of these
plays were also adapted for
radio, and many were performed
throughout New Zealand.
Other writings and
honours
Bruce wrote a chapter on New
Zealand Drama in The Pattern of
New Zealand Culture in 1968, and
wrote his own book, New Zealand
Drama: A parade of forms and a
history, in 1972. He was given a
State Literary Fund Scholarship
in Letters in 1973 and, in 1977,
received an Honorary Doctorate
in Literature from Victoria
University. In 1980, he was
awarded a CBE in the New Year’s
Honours list.
Final years
In 1978, Bruce was struck with
paralysis of the right side of the
face. At first wrongly diagnosed
as Bell’s palsy, it was identified
as cancer of the parotid gland.
He had several surgeries to
remove the cancers and correct
the asymmetry of his face. Bruce
Mason died on 31 December 1982.
25
"What was most
inspiring about Bruce
was his tireless efforts
towards the creation of
a New Zealand theatre."
4.
Following the
footprints of Bruce
Mason
I immediately sewed the button
onto his costume without
question. Who is that man?
I asked other people in the
company and they explained.
Bruce was a playwright, a
critic, and actor and a fiction
writer. He was a co-founder of
Downstage Theatre in 1964,
wrote a weekly column for the
New Zealand Listener from 1964
to 1969, and reviewed theatre
for many years for both The
Dominion and The Evening Post
newspapers in Wellington. He
wrote 34 plays in total, edited
the landmark Maori news
magazine Te Ao Hou between
1960 and 1961 and married Diana
Shaw, who became a well-known
Wellington obstetrician famous
for her ‘Amy Winehouse-type’
hairdos, her large earrings and
her habit of leaving shows early
in order to go and deliver babies.
Bruce was born on 28 September
1921 in Wellington, New
Zealand, but his family moved to
Takapuna on the North Shore of
Auckland when he was five years
old. The nostalgic memories of
growing up near Takapuna Beach
resulted later in his writing THE
END OF THE GOLDEN WEATHER.
This became a classic piece of
New Zealand literature, was
made into a film and is often
used for study in New Zealand
schools.
Later on, I performed for
the first time at Downstage
Theatre in Steve Gooch’s play,
FEMALE TRANSPORT, playing
the part of a young female
convict being transported to
Sydney, Australia. Bruce wrote
up the play, giving me a small
review that went something
like “Vivienne Plumb as Winnie
bustles like a recalcitrant hen
back and forth across the
stage”. The phrase “recalcitrant
hen” has stuck in my head after
Vivienne Plumb remembers
fellow playwright Bruce Mason
and his role as an inspirational
force in New Zealand theatre.
At the time of my first meeting
with Bruce Mason, I was not a
playwright. I had begun an acting
career and my then partner was
working at Downstage Theatre in
Wellington, which meant I often
hung around the downstairs
coffee lounge and in the
backstage part of the theatre,
which is what I was doing when
Bruce walked out of one of the
dressing rooms, came straight
up to me, and asked me to sew a
button on his costume.
I think he assumed I was an
employee of the theatre, maybe
the junior “costume girl”. In
those days around the mid
1970s, Downstage employed
an entire company of actors,
directors, stage managers and
wardrobe people. The theatre
produced year-round mainstage productions and latenight shows, took theatre into
26
3.
the schools and was a training
ground for all of the abovementioned occupations.
Bruce could have been preparing
for a matinee performance of his
solo show WATERS OF SILENCE,
or it may have been NOT
CHRISTMAS, BUT GUY FAWKES,
I can’t remember now. But
what stopped me in my tracks
was Bruce’s well-enunciated
voice and very particular way of
speaking (all the other actors
would try to mimic him), his
gregarious manner, and his
entire demeanor which spelt out
“Amazing Theatrical Being” in
larger-than-life capital letters.
I was so totally impressed that
all these years – it was such a
good description of what I was
doing on stage, and so typical of
Bruce’s superbly written, witty
theatre reviews.
During the 1980s, I began living
in a house in Drummond St in
Newtown. The Wellington actor,
Michael Haigh, explained to me
that I was now living next door
to what had once been Unity
Theatre. The theatre was started
by Wellingtonians interested
in theatre and in the use of
theatre as political comment.
It was a society with a tradition
of left-wing political leanings
that began around 1942. In its
early years, Unity moved from
Newtown to Aro Valley, and
then to its final site in the Royal
Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes
building at 1 Kent Terrace, where
it became BATS Theatre in 1979.
Unity was a breeding ground
for local New Zealand writers.
Besides productions of Sean
O’Casey, Gorky Arthur Miller
and Ibsen, the theatre at 36
Drummond St also premiered
many New Zealand works,
including James K Baxter’s
WIDE OPEN CAGE and several
of Bruce’s pieces. The theatre
was a wooden two-storeyed
house with bay windows built
around 1910 in a row of lookalike
townhouses that ran along
the top of the Drummond St
steps. The dressing rooms
and wardrobe storage were
situated upstairs and the stage
and audience area were in the
front room, the hallway and
what would have once been the
parlour.
Bruce lived nearby in a large
house at 27 Riddford St,
Newtown, where his wife Diana
had established a surgery on
the ground floor while the family
lived above. This house is still
standing in Riddiford St, very
near the hospital, and is now
used by the Wellington Child
Cancer Centre.
Bruce’s play THE POHUTUKAWA
TREE was rehearsed in a church
hall in Adelaide Rd in Newtown
close to Bruce’s residence in
Riddiford St. If you look on a
map at the three points – Unity
Theatre in Drummond St, the
house in Riddiford St, and the
church hall on Adelaide Rd –
you can see that they create an
easily walkable triangle.
27
"He was one of the
people who didn’t just
talk about it; he got up
and did it."
THE POHUTUKAWA TREE was an
ambitious full-length project,
operatic in size and feel. It
was first performed by the
New Zealand Players Theatre
Workshop in 1957, directed by
Richard Campion. The initial
run was seven performances in
Wellington and two in Auckland.
Bruce hoped to make an
income from plays such as THE
POHUTUKAWA TREE but the play
never drew large audiences; it
was after this that he decided
to work on solo pieces that he
could perform himself and he
wrote THE END OF THE
GOLDEN WEATHER.
I am writing this article during
Maori Language Week and at
the same time the idea is being
presented in Parliament that
the Maori New Year, Matariki,
be celebrated every year with a
public holiday.
Bruce was writing THE
POHUTUKAWA TREE 50
years ago and it is his own
contribution to a bicultural
future for New Zealand. What
was most inspiring about Bruce
was his tireless efforts towards
the creation of a New Zealand
theatre. He was one of the
people who didn’t just talk about
it; he got up and did it.
In the revised publication of THE
END OF THE GOLDEN WEATHER,
he describes touring and
28
performing the piece six nights
a week through large and small
New Zealand towns where he
stayed in hotels or with local
people, often every night in
a different bed in a different
town. His stories of the people
he met – shepherds, farmers,
housewives on the land – are
both touching and historically
fascinating. It was a hardworking agricultural society
and New Zealanders weren’t
even sure what “culture” was.
Bruce states that he thought he
had something to offer the New
Zealand public but that, as he
continually performed the solo
pieces, he came to a realisation
that he was really learning from
his audience. These days it is
amazing to imagine him touring
and performing THE END OF THE
GOLDEN WEATHER something
like a thousand times. It was
actions such as these that not
only gave Bruce experience
and understanding of the New
Zealand audience and a window
into their lives and culture,
but helped him to create the
beginning of a New Zealand
theatre that was about us, that
was our own stories.
In 1995, I was awarded the Bruce
Mason Playwrighting Award
for my first play, LOVE KNOTS.
Diana Mason was there at the
presentation and I told the story
about Bruce asking me to sew
a button onto his costume. The
award meant so much to me and
was a great encouragement for
me to continue writing.
The ground
of THE
POHUTUKAWA
TREE:
New Zealand in
the 1940s and ’50s
Writers walk in the footprints of
the ones who went before them.
Bruce pioneered the walking
track along which New Zealand
playwrights are now travelling.
He left us his beautiful stories,
the playwriting award that is in
his name, and the “walkway”
that he established for us;
because of that I feel a great
affinity with him and an
immense affection for him.
Welcome to Te
Parenga
IMAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1, 3 & 4— © Dominion Post Collection
Alexander Turnbull Library,
Wellington, N.Z.
2 — © New Zealand Post Limited. NZ
Writers, 1 March 1989; reproduced with
the consent of New Zealand Post Limited
“It was a very interesting time in
New Zealand history, because
the men had all come back from
the war and many women had
been widowed– including, we
think, Aroha. She talks about
how her husband died 10 years
ago, which would have been in
the middle of the war, and the
reason he’s not talked about very
much, I think, is that it was very
common; many women were
widowed and so it was just par
for the course.
It’s a country on the cusp of
change: things are changing. It’s
the beginning of the big drift of
rural Maori to the cities, and of
this new breed that came into
being called ‘teenagers’. Before
that there weren’t teenagers
really. Of course there were
people of teenage years, but
they weren’t a culture of their
own. A lot of it is the major
influence of the American
culture on New Zealand with
the American troops being here
during the war – the chewing
gum, the nylon stockings, all that
kind of thing – and teenagers
beginning to assert their
authority, which you saw flourish
in the 1960s.” (Colin McColl)
Takapuna, on which Mason’s
fictional Te Parenga was based,
was a long way from central
Auckland at the time the play
was written (remember, the
Auckland Harbour Bridge was
not completed until 1959!). In
the 1950s, only about 50,000
people lived on the whole North
Shore – by 2008, there were
approximately 223,000 people
living there. Many wealthy
families had homes in Auckland
city and came to their second
houses in Takapuna or Milford
in the weekends or holidays.
A ferry service, operated by
the Devonport Steam Ferry
Company, used to run from town
to the Takapuna wharf.
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About the AUCKLAND THEATRE COMPANY
Education Unit
www.atc.co.nz/educationunit
The Auckland Theatre Company
Education Unit promotes and
encourages teaching and
participation in theatre and acts
as a resource for secondary and
tertiary educators.
Political
independence
New Zealand adopted the
Statute of Westminster in
1947, which meant the country
became “officially” independent
of British rule. The Statute
had been passed in the United
Kingdom in 1931, but New
Zealand did not initially agree
with the notion of political
independence, so it remained a
British Dominion until 1947.
Six o’clock swill
Pubs were required by law to
close at 6.00pm and most men
finished work at 5.00pm. Thus
this time became known as
“the six o’clock swill”, as men
swigged their beer as quickly
as possible before closing time.
Very few women went to pubs
during this era.
The real deal:
Takapuna’s
pohutukawa trees
Some of the pohutukawa trees
that remain in the Takapuna
area are over 200 years old. The
Maori of the area used to refer to
30
one sacred grove as Te Urutapu,
and Maori travellers would
put flowers at the foot of the
trees, or hang clothing from the
branches, as a mark of respect
to the spirits of the grove.
White wedding
This photo shows a family
wedding party at a traditional
white wedding in New Zealand
in 1949. The bride wears orange
blossom and a traditional
veil. Note that every woman is
wearing a hat; no lady would
have been seen at such a formal
occasion without one.
“There were big
differences between
rural and urban Maori.
Huge differences. Even
more pronounced
back then. I remember
thinking that as a girl;
I was a Maori girl
from the sticks,
coming down here as
an 18 year old, and
Maori weren’t Maori
to me here in the city.
They were really,
really different.”
RENA OWEN
It is a comprehensive and
innovative education programme
designed to nurture young
theatre practitioners and
future audiences.
The Auckland Theatre Company
Education Unit has direct
contact with secondary school
students throughout the
greater Auckland region with a
focus on delivering an exciting
and popular programme that
supports the Arts education
of Auckland students and
which focuses on curriculum
development, literacy and
the Arts.
Auckland Theatre Company
acknowledges that the
experiences enjoyed by the
youth of today are reflected in
the vibrancy of theatre in
the future.
Curriculum links
Auckland Theatre Company
Education Unit activities relate
directly to PK, UC and CI strands
of the New Zealand Curriculum
from Levels 5 to 8. It also has
direct relevance to many of the
NCEA achievement standards at
all three levels.
All secondary school Drama
students (Years 9 to 13) should
be experiencing live theatre as
a part of their course of work
(Understanding the Arts in
Context).
AS90612) require students to
write about live theatre they
have seen.
Students who are able to
experience fully produced,
professional theatre are
generally advantaged in
answering these questions.
For a full list of references and
resources for this pack go to
www.atc.co.nz/EducationUnit/
Resources
Curriculum Levels 6, 7 and 8
(equivalent to Years 11, 12 and
13) require the inclusion of New
Zealand drama in their course
of work.
The NCEA external examinations
at each level (Level 1 – AS90011,
Level 2 – AS90304, Level 3 –
31