Theatre review: The Tautai of Digital Winds, Mangere Arts Centre

The storyline swirls about in a blast of local colour.

Tale of youth finding their way in the world is strong on emotion.

With a cast of 25, a live band, dancers and video projections, The Tautai of Digital Winds presents a truly epic piece of community-based theatre.

The title refers to the navigation of ancient Polynesian voyages and applies the concept to contemporary Pacific Island youth searching for a way through the treacherous currents of their digitally enhanced world.

Playwright Iaheto Ah Hi shows a talent for creating vivid story fragments driven by intense emotion and leavened with a vigorous sense of humour.

Newcomer Aisea Latu builds a compelling portrait of a troubled teen making all the wrong choices as he slips into a life of crime. His performance is full of cheeky bravado as he mocks the teachers and cops who offer guidance.

His chilled-out defiance masks deep hurt that is revealed through a tender relationship with his mother and a powerful encounter with an often absent father who has been driven into the ground by decades of factory work.

The storyline is tossed about in a carnival of local colour that includes a wildly energetic dance battle, a seriously cute family group preparing for White-Sunday, a deranged neighbourhood wi-fi hacker, an amusing parody of an LA-style girl gang and a hilarious cameo from an Indian school teacher exasperated by his students while losing himself in a Bollywood fantasy.

On top of all this, Jenifer Perez delivers a sweetly poetic series of diary entries chronicling the heartbreak of romance among teenagers adrift in a world of gaming consoles.

Eventually it becomes a case of too much of a good thing and the running time extends to an attention-sapping two hours and 20 minutes without an interval.

The main narrative resurfaces periodically, most notably in a riveting speech from Tom Natoealofa who honours the memory of a mate who committed suicide by aggressively rejecting the pathway that leads to despair.

Theatre review
What: The Tautai of Digital Winds
Where: Mangere Arts Centre - Nga Tohu o Uenuku
When: to August 16.