Chocolate On Your Board?

Greetings from the other side. Outside Mullingar closed with a standing O on Saturday. Needless to say the ole blog took a back seat this last week. True to his word though, playwright Victor Roger sent his thoughts through about PI representation in the South (or lack thereof)...so I have taken the liberty to include it in the body of this blog. I'm very curious to read your response. 

Arohanui,

Lara 

Talofa all.  Lara, I said my big brown self would jump on here one day and here I am. ..
Last year I had three plays on in Auckland: A return season of Black Faggot, a revival of my first play Sons and a remount of At The Wake which debuted at Centrepoint in 2012. This year, so far I’ve had a remount of My Name is Gary Cooper in Honolulu, a return season of Black Faggot in Melbourne and the debut of my latest work Girl on a Corner. Things are going pretty well…But the fact remains that I hustled pretty hard to get my work on at The Court when I was back home in Christchurch for 18 (very long) months…all to no avail.  I don’t say this as sour grapes, though - even though it may sound sour.  (And full disclosure: I sent a bit of a hands on hips email to the Court and was, rightfully reminded they did indeed commission me in 2009 to write a play (along with Silo Theatre)...That play is in the cab rank, waiting with the others that are starting to flow out of me at a faster pace)...Still it’s disappointing to me that my hometown has only ever done one of my plays - and that was SONS exactly 20 years ago.  Or that it was only last year that my work - in the form of Black Faggot - made it onto Wellington stages (the first, since SONS in 1998).  Using my old journo skills, I began to research the make up of theatre boards/councils in Dunedin/Christchurch/Wellington/Palmerston North/Auckland…and found very little Maori/PI representation - as in , almost none, which, to my mind will always make it harder for ‘us’ to get our work on a traditional mainstage unless it doesn’t scare the horses too much, so to speak.  But as far as I’m concerned all of the above theatre producers should have done My Name is Gary Cooper.  All of them should have done Aroha White’s debut work, 2080 (which will be on at BATS later this year)...Again, I don’t mean this sound like sour grapes, but you know what? I had a bit of an epiphany last year as I looked up at the posters of The Court’s 2014/2015 season….and moreso after sitting in a couple of their (very well acted) shows, the lone Samoan at the ball…and the scales fell off my eyes and I realised…This isn’t The Prize.  Not anymore. Yes, the coin would be great, of course…but I’m not about to hustle hard to get my work on here anymore in front of an all-but palagi audience who, to my mind, are very rarely presented with work that makes them uncomfortable.  And if there is one mantra in my mind right now it is this: Art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed (although I do not that ultimately everyone needs to make a buck).  But work by writers who are of Pacific Island or Maori descent are, as far as I’m concerned, totally where it’s at…we are #TheFuture…but it’s apparent that not everyone has got that memo (though God bless YOU Centrepoint for doing Black Faggot, kalofae lol)...Anyway, that’s my two cents. Have at, Aotearoa.  Cheeky Ungrateful Darkie? Or Truth Sayer? Your call…Alofa atu, V.

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