First, a couple of confessions:

1) The wahine who had claimed the Theatreview review spot for this new play was called away to a tangi, so I’ve stepped in. Happily. There is always a thrill in witnessing a world premiere.

2) When I first saw the title Tūī Girls, I wondered if it might be an homage to the women in a Tui Beer advertisement that screened years ago – a retro male-fantasy if ever there was one. Then I read the production blurb: “Nanny’s dead, the girls know this, but this doesn’t stop them from making her cups of tea. It’s not like they’re doing it for no reason – she just keeps asking for them, and there’s no way they’re gonna tell her no.” So no, not those Tui Girls.

A web search reveals tūī, the bird, is associated with life and vitality, holding significance as a messenger bridging the spiritual and physical worlds. And as a verb, tui means to sew, thread on a string, or bind. All these meanings apply to this intriguingly wrought play.

Michaella Steel (Tainui | Rarotonga) has developed Tūī Girls through Kia Mau Festival’s 2025 He Toi Hou – New Works programming pou; it had a reading at BATS a year ago with the same director, Alia Marshall (Tūhoe) and some of the same actors. Now Placeholder Productions brings its premiere to Te Whaea’s Basement Theatre.

A couple of ribbon-tied tissues greet us on every second seat in the seating bank, alerting us to the possibility of weeping. Two girls we will come to know as Manaia, played by Ngaronoa (Gahh) Awhina Lazarus (Ngāpuhi), and Diana (Dee), played by Hellena Faasili (Samoa), sit cross-legged on a mat, kanohi ki te kanohi, playing hand-slap and guessing games, conversing quietly, practicing pūkana … Their way of being suggests pre-teen.  

The set design – by Production Manager Ollie Harding and Teddy Dickison, also the Costume Designer – despicts one end of a barn with a couple of windows offering a rural view painted like a child’s picture book – in contrast to the real photos, lei, poi and plastic sun-visor that adorn the back wall. Already we sense this is a liminal space between childhood and adulthood.

Suddenly Manaia and Dee are on their feet as two others – Maea Janelle Shepherd (Ngā Puhi | Ngāti Awa) who plays Nita, and Ruby Carter (Ngāti Porou) who plays Estella (Tess) – join them for a soulful rendition of ‘Pō Atarau’ (‘Now is the Hour’), as adults. Then all four are children again, playing hide-and-seek, variously attempting to conceal themselves as an indulgent Nanny – Tarsha Te Rure (Ngāti Porou, Te Arawa, Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe) – tries to find them: her mokopuna.

Nanny’s, “If I wasn’t already dead, you’d have killed me,” clearly establishes the status quo, confirmed by her mokos’ tentative curiosity about the experience of leaving this word. But before she takes the long walk to Te Rerenga Wairua (the leaping place of spirits, at Cape Rēinga) and the long swim to Hawaiki, she wants “a big party!”  

As the girls prepare for, and attempt to have, a ‘Fun-eral’ to honour their Nanny, the action segues between their adult selves and their childhood memories – the transitions abetted by Lighting Designer & Operator Hāmi Hawkins (Kahungunu | Ngāti Wai).

Each of the Tūī Girls is fully immersed in their character as their distinctions become clearer. Dee deals with her grief by creating a dance, that’s very hyper. Manaia harbours a guilt that she caused her parent’s divorce. Nita resists the ‘fun’ way of grieving. Tess, as the girl who grew up next door, frets that deceased Pākehā don’t get the Te Rerenga Wairua. All interact with Nanny in their own ways, for their own reason – and all quietly cope with her constantly wondering if Declan will come.

I take it Declan is her son, who left when the parents divorced. Was Jasmine his wife, the mother of their children; Nanny’s mokos? And if so, where is she now? As for Bubba, who’s in Forestry, where does he fit in? The question of where each sister or friend lives now, as an adult, and what they’re doing with their lives preoccupies me too. 

Nanny also shares moments of introspection with the audience, Te Rure’s her low-key delivery often garnering laughs. The morsels of wisdom she imparts are sometimes amusing, sometimes profound. And her questioning of each moko about whether they qualify as Māori is confronting.

Only when Dee sees dawn approaching and realises that will herald Nanny’s departure do I realise the ‘real time’ transit of this play has been over just one night. I’m guessing it’s the resetting of props (bedding) within what looks like the real-time action of the play that has thrown me.

The rush of regrets at questions unasked, things not said and things not done brings urgent energy to the final moments. It becomes apparent that Nanny’s connection to te ao Māori has not been as strong as she’d have liked it to be and her mokopuna have become even more divorced from it. As ‘Pō Atarau’ marks the end of the play, we are left with plenty to ponder.

Final confession: I have not been moved to use the tissues provided, I think because my brain was too busy seeking answers to the questions raised above, rather than submitting to empathy with what each character is experiencing. But after the show I’m delighted to connect with a wahine toa I have not seen for years – and she is clutching a fistful of sodden tissues. So there we are: different strokes …

That said, Tūī Girls has intrigued me throughout and I’m excited by the ingenious way Michaella Steel has sought to share experiences of grief, both for the mokos’ beloved Nanny and their indigenous culture.    

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