Little Black Bitch cast members (from left) Poroaki Merritt-McDonald, Te Ao o Hinepehinga and Akina Edmonds take a rehearsal break. Photo / Dean Purcell
Mythology, waiata and humour combine in a new play that encourages audiences to talk about depression, writes Kim Knight
Depression is a bitch. A snarling, sneaking shadow, on the edge of your sightlines.
Depression is, literally, a bitch. A black dog, conjured in the wake of a suicide. Akina Edmonds unlaces her strappy heels and takes to the rehearsal stage barefoot. She crouches low; her noise is guttural, elemental. She is the little black bitch of the play's title - a physical manifestation of pain and grief. It's just a regular day outside in Papatoetoe but in this room something extraordinary is happening.
In the year ended June 2019, some 685 suicides were recorded in New Zealand - 17 more than the year prior. The Māori suicide rate rose to 28.23 per 100,000 people. The Pacific Island rate increased slightly to 11.49 and the European rate fell to 13.46 per 100,000.
Remind yourself, these numbers are people.
READ MORE:
• The myth of the tortured artist: How New Zealand is safeguarding mental health in the arts
• Ground-breaking project propels Maori playwrights
• New play aims to cheer up new parents
• High profile deaths prompt new mental health plan for performers
"Little Black Bitch will not necessarily find a solution to our horrific suicide statistics," says playwright and director Jason Te Mete. "But it will provide a platform to have an open kōrero, inspire healing and remind us it is the responsibility of the whole whānau to raise our rangatahi and encourage them to take their 'dog' for a walk now and then."
That quote was from the press release. In this rehearsal room at Papatoetoe, Te Mete (Ngāti Ranginui) is at the grassroots end of business. Three actors on stage, a guitar, an accusation - and a revelation.
"That's the energy we want ... feel that bubble, the teapot on the stove ... then, PWHOOOH."
Week two of this production in progress. The cast is still reading from scripts, there are water bottles everywhere, a stray rugby ball on the floor and, if you squint, you can just make out the words "Miss Hairspray 1962" underneath the painted back wall. Off stage, actors talk tax codes and call times. On stage, it is life - and awfully, horribly - death.
Edmonds: "Why theatre? That was, and is, our first way of communicating. That's the communication of our people. We're storytellers ... through singing, through writing, through drawing ... we're just able to go, 'BLEEURGH.' Just chuck it all out and then open up."
She's usually Sydney-based. Ngāti Porou and Ngāti Kahungunu, a former contestant on The Voice Australia, with roles in The Lion King, Avenue Q and more. She plays Toto - that black dog you can feel but not necessarily see.
Little Black Bitch opens this week at the Māngere Arts Centre, before runs at Tapac and Whāngarei's OneSixSix. The seven-strong Māori and Pasifika cast includes a young man making his professional stage debut, a founding member of the Modern Māori Quartet and a member of Parris Goebel's The Royal Family hip-hop mega crew and a star of television's Go Girls.
How close to home is the script?
Poroaki Merritt-McDonald: "One of my friends committed suicide, just at the start of the year. Bringing it here, to carry him on here, just to help everyone else, so no one else has to do that ... yeah. Yeah."
He is Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāiterangi, Ngāti Kauwhata and Rangitāne. He is also just 16 years old.
"Māori people are at the top of the scale for suicide," he says. I think it would be just amazing to get this out to all our indigenous people and teenagers who are going through a real tough time. I want to get it out there, as a teenager, to do that for them ... From a teenager's perspective, it's just really easier to engage in what's happening when it's in theatre, more than having a face-to-face conversation with Mum and Dad or something like that. It just feels more ... easier. To let out all of your emotions."
After his friend's suicide, Poroaki's dad took him to Tolaga Bay. They slept outdoors, went fishing, diving and hunting.
"We just did everything our tīpuna would do. Lived off the food we'd catch, just connecting with the god of trees, and life. Tāne-mahuta and our Mother Earth and, yeah, we just connected back to everyone. Just to get us nice and - what's the word - rangimārie, like, calm. Just to release everything out. Yeah. It helped a lot, eh."
His voice is so deep, his smile so huge. It's post-rehearsal and he's sitting on the stage steps with Edmonds and Te Ao o Hinepehinga ("call me T," she says). His castmates nod in agreement.
Edmonds: "Everyone can benefit from this. When you have a respect for nature, there's a give and take, a reciprocal relationship."
Hinepehinga: "There's an energy that exists within everything. You can call it God, you can call it Buddha. Regardless of what you call it, it's there. Whether or not you're choosing to acknowledge its presence and be a part of that relationship, or stand off from it. What this show is asking you is just to listen. For a moment, just listen. And if you feel something, don't hide from it. Come towards it. Embrace it and see where it leads you. Because it hasn't led any of us astray so far."
She is 24, Ngāi Tāmanuhiri and Ngāti Kahungunu, heading for TV screens later this year in the rugby drama Head High. It's coming up to two years, says Hinepehinga, since she lost a friend to suicide after he, in turn, had struggled with the suicide of his own partner.
Depression, she says, is a lack of connection. "Feeling alone, feeling like you don't have anyone to go to. You fear to reach out for help. The beauty of this show - and it's not to say, 'This is the way to beat depression,' because it has so many faces and comes in so many forms and every one way is going to fit for each person - but it's like what we say, 'It's cool to kōrero,' to put that reaching arm out. In our conversations - that's where that change can happen."
Little Black Bitch was a 2018 Adam Play Award winner and is the first in a series of works being created by the Tuatara Collective, under the umbrella "Over My Dead Body". Each new work will focus on a different tentacle of the Te Wheke Māori Health model, beginning with whatumanawa - the open and healthy expression of emotion. Actors have undergone training to help with post-show conversations and audiences will have access to an in-house counsellor.
Edmonds says early feedback is that the presence of a counsellor "made the audience feel safe enough for the themes. They were given permission to feel - and to feel uncomfortable - but also to leave if they needed to. That is power in itself".
How do you talk about suicide? Start by considering the universal nature of its fall-out.
"It's all the same, man," says Poroaki. "Different colour, different race - we're all still the same, we're all still human, we all feel. It's just as hard for us [as Māori] as it is for everyone else, to go through something as big as a loss."
Edmonds: "I feel Māori have a beautiful protocol around acceptance of grief. Having an open casket, to see your loved one there and not waking up ... having the three days and having the permission to scream at that person. Like, you see aunties scream, you'll see people wailing, people just going, 'Oh my gosh, why did you do that?' Just going off. And then, nek minnit, they're having a sing. Do you know what I mean?"
Hinepehinga: "That's grief."
Edmonds: "Letting all that happen. Letting the kids run around. There's always people in the kitchen cooking, that body is never left alone, there's always a person. One on each side of that body and I guess that helps, spiritually, to know you were there on their journey into the next life. I think our people have a beautiful way in which to help the acceptance. But again, as Poroaki was saying - it still hurts."
The night before this interview, film-maker Taika Waititi dedicated his Oscar win "to all the indigenous kids in the world who want to do art and dance and write stories", saying "We are the original storytellers."
Edmonds: "It was like, 'Same!' We're all saying the same thing."
Think of theatre, the trio explains, as a conversation starter, "an opportunity to spark the flame". New Zealanders know this country's suicide statistics are shocking. We're schooled on awareness - what's needed now, is kōrero about prevention.
"It's not just us," says Edmonds. "It's not just the audience. That's the whole point. It's a collective and that's what we've forgotten. It takes a village to raise a child and that's how our people thrive ... our core is kotahitanga [unity] ... and it's clear in our suicide rates, we've lost that. There is no one to blame for that, there is no time to waste on who to blame. There is only time to work out how we bring it together."
Hinepehinga: "The show is told through the eyes of Māori, some of the show is in Māori and we are utilising some of our Māori atua - but this is a story that can be heard by everyone and can resonate with everyone."
Little Black Bitch: Auckland, Māngere Arts Centre, March 3-8; Tapac, March 11-14; Whāngārei, OneSixSix, March 18-21.
• Lifeline: 0800 543 354 (available 24/7)
• Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) (available 24/7)
• Youth services: (06) 3555 906
• Youthline: 0800 376 633
• Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7)
• Whatsup: 0800 942 8787 (1pm to 11pm)
• Depression helpline: 0800 111 757 (available 24/7)
• Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155
• CASPER Suicide Prevention
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
Timothée Chalamet had long been interested in playing Bob Dylan.