What a pleasure it is to witness a large cast production where everyone involved totally owns their part in the process of bringing a crucial part of our history to light. I’m struggling to think of a more suitable play for Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School’s 2025 Graduation Production; the final major work by graduating students across Acting, Arts Management, Costume, Design and Set & Props.

Written by 1990 graduate Katie Wolfe and directed by 2001 graduate Jason Te Kare, with Nīkau Balme – who has grown up in a full immersion Te Ao Māori education through Puna Reo and Te Kura Kaupapa O Ngā Maungarongo – as Kaiako Kapa Haka/Kaitito Haka, this version of The Haka Party Incident sees a cast of 22 alternate 38 roles as Cast 1 and Cast A.

Once more, Aotearoa New Zealand theatre reaps the reward of the Kōhanga Reo generation’s coming of age. Even those who have not enjoyed a full immersion education are engaged in the zeitgeist that is reclaiming Te Ao Māori.  

Let me recap the lineage of this remarkable play:

In the early Noughties, Katie Wolfe found a reference to the infamous Haka Party Incident in Ranginui Walker’s book Ka Whawhai Tonu Mātou — Struggle Without End. About 15 years later she pitched it as a development project with the Auckland Theatre Company’s inaugural The Navigators development programme in 2017. The resulting play – a skilfully curated assemblage of verbatim interviews and archival material – premiered on 3 April 2021 at ATC’s ASB Waterfront Theatre with a core kapa of 7 channelling 38 roles through the medium of verbatim theatre.

The ATC production was resurrected, post-Covid, for a tour further afield from mid-2023 (also see the E-Tangata story). The following year, Wolfe’s screen documentary premiered, also to great acclaim. I like to think the consciousness-raising The Haka Party Incident engendered had a lot to do with the huge Pākehā turnout for the Toi Tu Te Tiriti activations last year. Tangata whenua, of course, have known about institutional racism for generations. Yet there are wilfully ignorant forces afoot right now who are intent on enshrining it in central and local government legislation.

The play is much more than an account of what has been described as “the last New Zealand war [that] took place in Auckland in 1979 [and] lasted three minutes.” For decades, Auckland University Engineering students had brought their grossly offensive ‘Haka Party’ to the annual Capping Parade. Aware that politely-worded letters had been ignored for 20 years, a group that became known as He Taua attempted to halt the insulting tradition.

The interviews Wolfe curated places the ‘incident’ and its aftermath in the immediate context of the Māori Land March (October 1975, led by Te Rōpū Matakite o Aotearoa: Those with Foresight), and the Bastion Point Occupation (1977 to 1978, organised by the Orakei Māori Action Committee) – both arising from our appalling history, since the 1840, of land confiscations and other failures to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

In his comprehensive Director’s Note, Te Kare writes (in part): “The beauty of this script lies in the willingness of everyone whose words make up the play to share their true thoughts and feelings about the incident, and about the way New Zealand society was when it happened. It makes you wonder how different things might be if more of us had the same courage to face our history with such openness – perhaps we wouldn’t still be circling the same lessons.”

Speaking of lessons, as well as being studied in schools, The Haka Party Incident should be compulsory viewing and/or reading for all members of parliament. (The script, with an excellent Foreword and Introduction, is published by Playmarket.)

But back to this production …

A striking set design, by Derrin Smith and Florence Wood, features a large triangular awning that disappears into darkness upstage. Heather Wright’s lighting design facilitates memorable moments in the space: a group of All Blacks performing a desultory Ka Mate (pre Buck Shelford’s resuscitation of it); a phalanx of baton-wielding policemen; thundering renditions of haka).

Two mini awnings over moveable boxes flank the space downstage left and right, and are judiciously used. I see the design as referencing both welcoming whare and the tents of an occupation.

He karanga brings the full kapa (ensemble) into the space, they respond with a karakia and haka (Tau Ka Tau) and the verbatim play begins. The initial kōrero comes (I believe) from a 1979 Eyewitness News story: He Taua members Hilda Halkyard-Harawera, Wiki Tawhara, Ben Dalton, James Pasene, Miriama Rauhihi-Ness, Brian Lepu and Zena Tamanui responding to Richard Harmon. Veronica (Ronnie) Leaf, Mary Povey, Georgina Walker-Grace, Hone Hawawera, Len Nukunuku, Kingi Tangira and Polynesian Panther Tigilau Ness will join the conversation later – mostly speaking from interviews conducted nearly 40 years later.

Te Rangi Hīroa, who composed ‘Akarana’, the university’s haka, in 1924, establishes the validity of what became bastardised over the years with drunken and ludicrously costumed students revelling in ridiculing the very concept of haka – ‘all good fun’ and embraced by Aucklanders as part of the Capping festivities.  

The Engineering students are represented by Ian Gibson, Simon Faire, Brent Meeken, Simon Woodward, Andrew Stewart, Barry Davidson, Des McRae and Mark Gasson. Other students who testify are Janet Roth (President AUSA), Kathy McRae and Karen Gibson. Lecturer in Social Anthropology and Māori Studies Anne Salmond is briefly heard and Editor of the student newspaper Craccum, David Merritt, also conducts interviews.

These are the people whose kōrero builds a vivid picture of who was involved in the ‘what, why and how’ of the lead up and aftermath of the ‘incident’ on 1 May 1979. It escalated into a violent confrontation, resulting in the arrests of the Māori activists’ whose only intention had been to ask the Engineering students to cancel their plans. The accounts of their blatantly illegal treatment by Auckland Police is harrowing in the extreme and stands as a prime example of institutional racism.

By way of contrast, a scene entitled ‘The Greatest Prank of All Time’ has Simon W trying to impress us with his hilarious recollection of the Capping stunt involving fake fire-arms and blood which led to a massive call-out of armed police – and no serious consequences for the Pākehā perpetrators.  

A huge and hours-long student-led Forum in the quad a few days later is vividly evoked, compelling us to evaluate all sides of the argument. Hilda, the only He Taua member who is enrolled at the university, simply observes and reports back.

David Merritt’s interview with Ben Dalton reveals how police created bogus evidence by lifting items from the accused’s homes and asserting they were weapons used in the ‘attack’. There is also a salutary account of racist behaviour at the Cenotaph.  

The first half ends with the kapa singing ‘In the Past’ (a protest song from Maranga Mai, a play by the theatre group of the same name led by Roma and Brian Potiki).  

The court case (11 July 1979), fronted by David Morris for the Prosecution’ and Vapnierka Kupenga and Sian Elias for the Defence, is initially reported by Engineering student Brent and He Taua member Ben. The sequence where Eruera Stirling’s explanation of the haka is translated by Sir Kingi Ihaka is riveting, and underpinned by a building rendition Ka Mate. Nevertheless, most of the defendants are convicted.

Subsequent comments from Alan Blackburn from The Human Rights Commission and Mitzi Nairn from the Auckland Committee on racism and Discrimination (ACORD) attest to the gradual comprehension that racism is a real issue. Tigilau underlines what’s at stake when trying to fight racism.

Engineers offer their hindsight positions: Ian reckons “I’m not racist but …”; Simon F is not interested in other people’s feeling and can’t see why he should think differently. Janet tries to articulate how real change might come about. Brent asserts cultural ignorance is not racism …

The final title slides read “Acknowledge the Past”, heralding the haha ‘Me Hoki Whakamuri Kia Anga Whakamua’, and “ Move Boldly to the Future” gives the last heartfelt words to Hone, Karen, Barry, Brent, Ronnie, Brian, Hilda, Richard and Miriama before Balme’s ‘He Taua’ haka offers a climactic finale.

The focused fluidity of the production belies the epic scale of the play. Te Kare’s account of his directing process concludes: “I’ve asked them to find the humanity in all the voices within the play — not to tell the audience what to think, not to show the audience how they feel about the character, but rather to hand over the agency to the audience. To simply use the words of these people, allowing the audience to understand what it was like for them.”

Cast 1, on opening night, deliver wholeheartedly on his wero by inhabiting their roles with conviction, compelling us to place ourselves honestly in the conversation that remains all too relevant and urgent. I have no doubt Cast A will do the same.  

(For the full credit listings, click here then select Production Details.)
Photos by MaeveO’Connell

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