Rare performance of classic New Zealand play

Three members of a fine cast of the play The Pohutukawa Tree - Carey Knapp (Clive Atkinson), former WHS student Shaila Hawkins (Sylvia Atkinson) and Karen Hughes (Isobel Atkinson).

The Pohutukawa Tree
Directed by Phil Hudson
Whanganui Repertory Theatre

Bruce Mason's classic play The Pohutukawa Tree is an ambitious one to take on. It's long, has complex and controversial themes, a big cast and several sets.

Congratulations to director Phil Hudson for pulling it off in Whanganui with an amateur cast. The audience was engaged all the way throug, cheered and applauded at the end and went home with a lot to think about.

Written in 1955, it's the story of a Māori family holding on to a last bit of land near the coast. They are subject to all the ravages of colonisation, but proud matriarch Aroha Mataira holds fiercely to her land and her new Christian values. Her teenage children, meanwhile, are subject to all the temptations of the new order.

Mason is clearly sympathetic to the plight of Māori as it appeared in the 1950s.

But things have changed since he wrote the play - the influence of the church has ebbed away and now we have the Waitangi Tribunal and a Māori renaissance.

Those changes set up odd echoes, as the play unfurls. And the story marches right along, with an unplanned pregnancy, old fashioned racism, a wedding, wilful damage and a court case.

The sets and lighting work well, and the audience is drawn right into the wedding scene as the guests parade down the aisle. The acting is a bit uneven, but with some standout performers.

Maddy Newton has the dignity and fluency to play a kuia of stature, and Millie Manning plays her charming and giggly daughter. Carey Knapp was the blustering Pākehā landowner, and Karen Hughes did a great posh accent as his refined and, later, sympathetic wife.

Peter Cameron was a lovable family doctor, Cathy Gribble the wedding guest who almost launches into opera, William Russell the rather severe priest and Richard Hamblett the garrulous land agent.

Overall a successful performance of a play that says a lot about New Zealand history and society.

The Pohutukawa Tree is performed again on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. If you only studied it at school - see how it comes alive on stage.