The Sons of Charlie Paora ( Archived )

Reviews

Pictured L to R: Liston Rua, Jason Webb, Joe Folau, Max Palamo, Foma’i Taito, Kiri Lightfoot and Wesley Dowdell.

New Zealand plays and players loom small to the point of invisibility in London. So how encouraging that seven actors from Auckland’s little Massive Company made a huge impression last night. Their performances proved far more remarkable than this first play by the actor, Lennie James, which has brought them over here. For James’s drama misses out on any central conflict, argument or debate. It is contentedly stalled in a thick fog of nostalgia and reminiscence, which briefly clears for interludes of grief and violence. These vivid moods the mainly Maori actors rivetingly convey in rituals, biblical words and song.

The genesis for James’s play was, apparently, the desire of the Massive actors to deal with the problems of being contemporary men. Do the male of the species now enjoy free-will or are they coerced into traditional patterns of behaviour? James’s play provides no answers. Set in a humble South Auckland house, it views the growing pains of manhood through the perspectives of five young Maoris who fizz, dance and sing with high-octane life as they booze a lot and brawl a little. An informal wake is being held for dear, departed Paora, their 1st XV rugby coach at college.

It is hard to distinguish between these emotionally retarded, jokey young men, For James reveals next to nothing about them or their lives, except for references to their adolescent love-lives. Analogously Paora, however much recalled, remains a foggily anonymous figure. When his twentysomething daughter and antagonistic son (Kiri Lightfoot and Wesley Dowdell) arrive, revelations about the coach ruined relations with his family and allusions to the ramifications of a violent incident spark no passion or discussion.

Samantha Scott’s production is charged with compensating vitality. The rugby players Max Palamo, Foma Taito, Joe Folau, Liston Rua and Jason Webb variously project emotion and vulnerability with relaxed conviction: they perform a Maori-Samoan rugby battle-dance as if it were drama, ballet and warfare all in one. They bring a far-off culture to life.

Nicholas de Jongh, EVENING STANDARD, 27 February 2004

There is far more to New Zealand than a location for Lord of the Rings. As I discovered a few years back, it has its own thriving indigneous theatre; and, even if Lennie James’s play is a bit schematic and message-laden, it is put across with real panache by Auckland visting Massive Company.

Set in a South Auckland garage, James’s play, the Sons of Charlie Paora, takes place during a wake for the eponymous hero: maths teacher, surrogate father and rugby coach to five Maori and Samoan guys who have come to swap memories and mourn his passing.

But their boozy, raucous rout is interrupted by the arrival of Charlie son and daughter. The former, in particular, burns with resentment at their father love for his sporting proteges and neglect of his own family; and only after a potentially ugly confrontation is a truce uneasily established.

As a visiting writer, James has done his homework and sometimes it shows too visibly.

You feel he has slotted in all the stories he has heard, from the small town fugitive contempt for his origins to the ancestor-worship that stops one guy becoming an All Black contender.

We even get to see Samoan rite in which a man threatens starvation until forgiven for his sins.

However, James’s play makes the leap from anthropology into drama when it deals with confused , conflicting memories of the late Charlie, and when it takes on the resonance of the Prodigal Son parable.

Samantha Scott’s production, with its hakas, hip hop and choreographer recreation of rugby triumphs, also has a pounding ensemble vigour and catches exactly the mixture of realism and ritual that is part of New Zealand’s multi-culturalism.

Max Palamo, as the guilt-ridden, guacamole-making host , Liston Rua, as a nervy local Don Juan, Jason Webb as the patronising rugby star, and Wesley Dowdell, as Charlie abrasive son, all give good individual performances.

But this is really a team show about a group of dominated guys who, partly because of the pervasive influence of their mentor, have never fully matured into men.

Michael Billington, THE GUARDIAN, 27 Febuary 2004