Erin Harrington reviews The Haka Party Incident, written and directed by Katie Wolfe, at The Court Theatre, Friday 27 October 2023.
In 1979, a group of Māori activists, who would come to be known later as He Taua, went to the University of Auckland to confront a group of engineering students who were preparing for their annual ‘haka party’. This was a longstanding capping stunt in which drunk young men presented a racist caricature of Māori: they would wear grass skirts, scrawl themselves with faux tā moko, perform bastardised haka, and generally race around like assholes causing mayhem. The lead up to this brief incident, the act of resistance, and the considerable (even nation-wide) fallout, are dramatized in the touring production of The Haka Party Incident: a potent, electrifying piece of documentary theatre that combines live drama with kapa haka and song. This show should be essential (and in some cases assigned) viewing for anyone who lives in this country, or who wants to better understand how the past and present are always in conversation.
Writer / director Katie Wolfe’s terrific verbatim script draws from archives, testimony and contemporary interviews. She interweaves 38 individual voices, ranging from members of He Taua and the engineering students involved, to journalists, lawyers, activists, translators, expert witnesses, academics, and bureaucrats. The play is performed received, with the actors wearing earpieces and channelling the voices of interviewees in real time, stutters and tics and all. The kapa – Te Ani Hinetekura Ngā Wai e Rua Bidois-Solomon, Aidan O’Malley, Nī Dekkers-Reihana, Kauri Williams, Patrick Tafa, Lauren Gibson, and Finley Hughes – offer consistently excellent, absorbing performances in what is a physically and no doubt emotionally demanding production. They skilfully maintain vocal and physical precision as they move, often swiftly, between speakers. Individuals grapple with memory, their values, and their past selves. Some revel in anecdote and community, but others – let’s be blunt and say its a bunch of the Pākehā – have a far harder time situating themselves. It’s a lot of things: difficult, infuriating, funny, disturbing, grotesque, sad, thoughtful, occasionally hopeful. I wonder at the privileged experience of existing with those voices across so many performances, particularly for those who have been with the production since its premiere 18 months ago; I suspect there’s something almost supernatural about it.
The production’s design is very striking. The Court Theatre has a massive stage, and here the blacks are stripped away entirely. A simple, effective and deep 10×10 grid, designed by John Verryt, takes up the central stage; at one point a picnic table is introduced, a place where people might actually sit face to face. Additional costumes and props hang within view. Occasionally dates, the names of haka, or key words are projected above the action. The performers visibly wait, and listen, when ‘off’ stage, bearing witness. Sound design (Kingsley Spargo), including taonga pūoro (Whetu Silver), and lighting design (Jo Kilgour) all work together to sculpt the space, drawing our focus across the grid’s harsh lines, and helping us follow shifts between actors. Characters are thoughtfully and efficiently expressed through casual costuming (Alison Reid): jeans, t shirts, bush shirts, jandals. Everything works carefully to move us between the present and the past, both actual and remembered. This design also impactfully supports the dynamic haka, ranging from traditional to contemporary works, that open and close the production, and puncture through the action.
Some favourite moments, then, in a show that’s all moments: Gibson flicking between multiple contrasting women in very quick succession as she walks across the stage discussing the incident’s fallout; Williams’ grounded, mana-infused take on He Taua member Ben Dalton; Hughes and O’Malley’s queasy negotiations between blokesy macho swagger and wounded white fragility; the interplay between Solomon and Dekkers-Reihana doubling as kaumatua Eruera Stirling, who is giving evidence on tikanga for the defence, and Tafa as court translator Sir Kīngi Īhaka; the cast scattered across the stage, swinging whistling poi awhiowhio, singing a discordant combination of the Battle Hymn of the Republic and the boorish “We Are, We Are the Engineers”. (Honestly, fuck those engineers.)
At time of writing we are sitting in the strange ‘eerie silence’ of the post-election interregnum. Many elements of the play take on an even greater urgency. In the opening spoken lines of the work Dekkers-Reihana channels Hilda Harawira, tears in her eyes, voicing her fears about the inter-generational loss of Te Reo Māori, but I think hopefully of new Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke’s challenge that the kōhanga reo generation has arrived. Comments near the end about the need for a more mature, rich approach to biculturalism and multiculturalism and the manifold benefits they bring, as well as hopes for a country that better values its workers, are framed by the knowledge that these things will be under threat to a greater or lesser degree by those at the forefront of our incoming government. The blocking near the end – three Pākehā actors along the front edge of the stage, the others lining the back wall – signals where the burden of this individual and structural work lies.
The final, ferocious haka “He Taua”, written for the show by the director’s son Nīkau Balme, invites us all to join the battle against “He kaikiri, he Taniwha e / Hōmai ra o kupu o toa kia wetewetea / Wetewetea, wetewetea / Whakamanatia te tangata e”*. It’s a moment of such intensity that three rows from the front I feel like I can’t breathe; I’m twisted in knots in my chair, tears in my eyes, release only offered by a stunned black out and an extended standing ovation. We race of out of the theatre; standing around with opening night fizzy wine doesn’t feel right after an experience so galvanising. I challenge anyone to see this furious, sad, generous, extraordinary show, one of the most important shows this country has seen in recent times, and not come away transformed.
* “…the monster known as racism / Give it here so it can be shredded / Ripped apart into nothing at all / To empower the people onwards again”
The Haka Party Incident has a limited run until 11 November 2023, so get your tickets now.
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