What follows is a new review for the Dunedin Arts Festival 2025 production, by Piupiu-Maya Turei, who also reviewed the show in 2024, here.

Wahine Mātātoa is the modern Māori equivalent of Shakespeare. Cindy Diver’s writing reminds me of Hone Tuwhare – there is a distinctive Māoriness to it. It speaks directly to Māori in the audience and breaches the cultural divide to be a wairua boosting experience for tauiwi and pākehā as well. It is a play about colonisation, reconnection, the everlasting and enduring importance of whakapapa. It is a hugely significant work, and I recommend seeing it with my whole heart.

I saw Wahine Mātātoa last year, during its developmental season and I thought I would be prepared this time. I thought I would be ready for the immense wairua that this play calls in, the big feelings edged with big laughs, the symbiotic relationship between the text, the technique and the āhua of the performance. 

I was wrong. Each twist turned my heart, each invocation of whakapapa held me, each moment of comedy a salve of kawakawa balm soothing the shared pain of loss and reclamation. The work was as fresh for me as it was the first time! It felt Shakespearean, it felt brand new and like coming home. E kore ngā kupu, me te rearea te mahi!

We were brought into the gallery space by Wendi Raumati’s karanga, entering into Allen Hall through a waharoa. The feelings of cultural safety enveloped us providing a truly safe space imbued with tikaka Māori. All throughout this production, there is a strong sense of tikaka Māori underpinning the entire production in all aspects.

The sound of birds settled us into our seats, before a karakia resounded out towards us. A slideshow of photographs of tūpuna and mokopuna was projected onto the sheer curtains either side of the stage afterwards, a beautiful mihi to the whakapapa lines that inform the play.

Wahine Mātātoa felt to me like a play which transcends time, highlighting the significant upheavals of 1800s Te Wai Pounamu and contrasting it with today’s political climate. There were free Tino Rangiratanga flag and Toitū Te Titiri bumper stickers at the doorway into the theatre. It is set between two very different times in history but through the script it draws them together into parallel lines, reminding us why we continue to fight for mana motuhake.

An example of this is when the monologues of the two main characters overlap and interact. Diver infuses them with vernacular of their own times and it creates a beautiful mirroring that deviates occasionally, where the words ‘whenua’ and ‘earth’ suddenly collide with each other, sending non-physical sparks across the minds of the audience. 

Both Millie Manning (Elizabeth Brown, Jane Brown) and Grace Turipa (Erihāpeti Pātahi) once again excelled at their roles! The time between the development season in June 2024 and the show I saw last night was short, but that time was used so wisely by the two actors and the directors Cindy Diver and Hillary Halba. Their hard work manifested in front of our eyes in the form of beautiful examples of the performance craft.

Cindy Diver and Simon Anderson did fantastic jobs in the supporting roles, playing an astonishing 14 characters between them. Diver’s embodiment of pākehā judges in the 1800s is absolutely perfect and Anderson was so fluid in his performance that in the first half, as Edwin Palmer I wanted to smack him, and in the second half, as Haimoa I wanted to pash him. Ah the duality of man!

The play is explicitly about women and their mana. Multiple times the wahine dictate what the men will say, and Diver’s writing does a wonderful job of readdressing the incorrect notion that te Ao Māori is sexist. Wahine are front and centre of this play, and the assertion of their mana a paramount part of the play.

The lighting (by Marty Roberts) and sound design (Ruby Solly, Madison Kelly & Matthew Morgan) perfectly matched the show, adding a subtle complexity that significantly enhanced the performances. The mix of prerecorded studio sound in the form of waiata from Ōtākou Waiata Rōpū, soundscape and music blended beautifully with the live performance of taoka pūoro by Madison Kelly. 

The combination felt like the aural experience of Māori living today – mixing of hearing our traditional instruments flow into waiata and pop music. Like when a playlist switches from a Te Matatini recording to Marlon Williams to mōteatea to pop music. 

The technical team did a great job of seamless set changes. The waka from the development season was back, and Nick Tipa once again impressed with the versatility of it. The sparse use of set design was a huge boon to the production. It gave the actors everything they needed to perform and really drew the audience in to watching the craft in action, as well as being beautiful, succinct and effective.

Wahine Mātātoa is a play about love. Love between sisters, love between tūpuna and mokopuna, love for te Ao Māori and love for how art can manifest our tūpuna’s wildest dreams.

Kia maioha te mihi kia koutou, kā kaimahi o Wahine Mātātoa. Kei te aroha nunui kia koutou – he mahi tino ātaahua tēnā!

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I have used Kāi Tahu dialect in this review, and would like to

Kupu:

Āhua – the character, likeness, shape, vibe.

E kore ngā kupu, me te rearea te mahi – I have no words, it was incredibly beautiful work!

Karanga – a call.

Kawakawa – a medicinal native plant.

Mana motuhake – Māori sovereignty. 

Tauiwi – non-Māori who are from anywhere excluding Europe and white Americans.

Tikaka Māori – the Māori way of doing things right.

Waharoa – entrance way, typically situated as a gate to enter onto a marae through.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer