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There’s a rich offering of theatre during the Matariki Festival, including a piece from new Maori-language exponent Te Rehia Theatre, as well as a new work from established company Taki Rua.

Renee Liang spoke to Amber Curreen, Regan Taylor and Tainui Tukiwaho about their innovative new forms of Maori theatre.

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Amber Curreen, Regan Taylor and Tainui Tukiwaho are a talented trio of young Maori theatremakers.  Amber Curreen (Ngapuhi) produces and Regan Taylor (Ngati Kahungunu) is a co-founder of Te Rehia Theatre, whose new production Hoki Mai Tama Ma explores a story of the Maori Battilion through the new form of Matarua or Maori mask. 

Matarua draws its inspiration from both traditional Maori and European artistic forms, making it a perfect choice for this play. 

Tainui Tukiwaho (Te Arawa/Tuhoe), who makes his debut as a playwright with this piece, also leads Taki Rua theatre company. Their new offering Putorino Hill (by Chris Malloy) makes its debut this Matariki. 

Renee Liang spoke to Amber, Tainui and Regan about their passion for Maori theatre.

Amber Curreen

What are your ties with other Maori theatre companies - I notice you all work on each other's productions. Is collaboration the key?

Collaboration is definately key! Both artistic and in terms of helping each other with producing works.  We are a small community and I think this community can work best as a whanau.  I would like to see this become the norm for all theatre companies, as we develop and entertain audiences together. 

How have your Te Reo classes for practitioners been going?

Ka pai! We first started doing Reo classes in 2010 up at Maungawhau where we had a keen group of practitioners from all areas of the performing arts. Reo classes this year have been going fantastically, we have a great time learning and having a kai together with our cast and anyone else who wants to come along! They’ve come so far in their Reo and pronunciation in such a short time, I’m so proud of them.  It’s all about confidence and not worrying about getting things wrong, keeps you open to learn.

How long have you been working with Tainui on Hoki Mai Tama Ma? What development did you do?

I’ve been helping out and being a sounding board for Tai’s writing of the latest drafts and then taking over producing the work this year but most of the development has been done with Regan and Tai – I’m just ngati tureiti cruising in after they’ve done the hard work ha ha ha. 

Tell me about your cast.

Our cast are all eggs. Except Amber. She’s choice -- ha ha ha. 
But seriously we’re one big whanau,  everyone is working really hard and is extremely talented. We have Rawiri Jobe playing Tama and Ascia Maybury playing Patricia. Regan multitasks playing two roles, Koro and Nuku and I play Bella. Other than Regan we’re all quite new to mask work and physical theatre so it’s very exciting for us and lots of learning is going on!   We’re all very proud to be part of the begining of this new artform and to be working with these beautiful masks.

I notice that the Maori translation for producer is kaitiaki - in what way does your role safeguard the work?

Great question! There’s the traditional idea of the producer safeguarding the success of a work in terms of making sure everything happens when it’s meant to happen and getting bums on seats at the end of the day. However this is not the sole focus of the role in my mind. I see the role as safeguarding and caring for the wairua of the people who make up our company.  Caring for our whanau who are creating this work and caring for those who we are planning to share it with.  Through this degree of care the work itself will be successful.
  
How are you working with Taki Rua to promote and support each other's work?

We are working to promote each other’s shows this Matariki to our respective audiences and have joined up publicity to advertise the dual theatre offerings in the Matariki Festival.

What are you working on next?

We’ll be working on a touring season of Hoki Mai Tama Ma for the next year.  I have another couple of ideas in the pipeline that we’ll be developing.

I’m also helping out Eve Gordon on a production level as The Dust Palace develop their new Cirque Theatre show Orpheus, based on Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending. It’s a really exciting project to be a part of, they’re such a talented bunch at Dust Palace!  

Tainui Tukiwaho

Why do you make theatre?

I feel like this answer requires some weight to it, because it seems like a question that would normally have a deep answer, but my answer is simple. I like it. I think it’s amazing that I can get paid to hang out and play games with my friends.

You've forged a broad career as an actor, producer, director and now playwright.  Are any of those roles closer to your heart than others?

I don't feel particularly drawn towards any one of those jobs. What drives me is content and if the content is right, I feel motivated to be part of a project in any one of the capacities that you mentioned.

How did you come up with the idea for Hoki Mai Tama Ma?

Hoki Mai Tama Ma came out of a desire to create a framework for this new art form of Mata kokako. I spoke with Regan Taylor and Keporah Ashby (original cast member) and we talked about how we were using Italian mask as a basis for our Maori masks. I then decided on using WW2 as a location because it was a famous time when Maori and Italian worlds collided. Then a narrative came quite quickly out of that for the first draft.

This is a first for mask work and Maori theatre, I think.  Why did you decide to explore the commedia form to tell Maori stories?

Regan has a background in Commedia so we used that mask form to begin our exploration of what Maori mask could be. But we will are also looking to explore other mask forms as well as part of the development process of this exciting new artform.
 
Tell me about your role and vision with Taki Rua.

My new role for Taki Rua is called Kaiarataki Mangairua and it means I have a joint CEO role with my counterpart Puti Lancaster. The job is a mixture of fun artistic stuff and pragmatic business stuff.  So it’s a good variety of jobs, which I’ve found exciting and interesting so far. My personal vision for the company is for it to become a beacon of support for artists that have a desire to create and promote Maori works.

Tell me about Taki Rua's new show.

Putorino Hill is a wonderful story that takes its audience on a journey through many different worlds. It’s a retrospective look at the life of an important koraua in a small town. I don't want to give the ending away but it is very powerful and worth waiting for.
 
What's next for you?

We are currently exploring programming for Taki Rua and Te Rehia is doing the same thing as well. At the moment nothing is cemented but the things that are floating in the air are very exciting! I think our audiences will be very happy with what we come up with for both companies.

Regan Taylor

This is a first for mask work and Maori theatre, I think - why did you decide to explore the commedia form to tell Maori stories?
 
When I was training as an actor at The Ucol Theatre School in 1999, I was introduced to Commedia Del Arte Masks. I became infatuated with the mask of Allechino. The more I wore this mask the more I realised "Hey this is like Maui Tikitiki Ataranga".  So I started to play this particular mask in my then, limited Te Reo, it translated beautifully. The question for me then was "Did Maori use masks at all?" This was the start of practical ways to approach this new artform. Using the rules of Commedia and the behaviour of stock characters within the form became the platform to research how archetypal Maori characters could be portrayed through mask.

How long have you been working with Tainui on Hoki Mai Tama Ma? What development did you do?

It was a month before Matariki last year that I had said to Tainui, I have this thought about masks and masks having a Maori wairua and the masks living in Te Ao Maori. Our company had just bought ten Commedia del Arte Masks so we started to investigate the possibilities. From our initial playing round we found that the Commedia masks lent themselves beautifully to Te Ao Maori, which led us to mount a development show at the Pumphouse Theatre on the North Shore. After an open panui with the audience post show, Tainui and I began looking toward traditional carvings within local marae the researching Kapa Haka and nga Maori waiata as a starting vehicle for the birth of te Mata kokako.

P?t?rino Hill - 2014 Trailer from Taki Rua Productions on Vimeo.