One-hander a masterful piece of theatre

Lawrence Mulligan plays Michael James Manaia in the Unity Theatre production.

From the opening scene of Michael James Manaia, it is clear the audience is in for a wild ride. Time to strap ourselves in.

The one-man play opens tonight at  Unity Theatre, with Lawrence Mulligan in the title role.

Here he is, recounting his trip to the hospital with his wife in labour and the police in pursuit.

We will laugh a lot. We will be shocked and moved and saddened as Michael’s life story is retold.

We will learn about his ancestors and his fondness for his rural hometown where his English mother was quickly embraced by the whānau partly because of her prowess as a home knitter. We will come to understand his love for his mother and his fraught, fractious relationship with a father who is impossible to please and prone to outbursts of aggression.

We will see the close bond he has with his little brother and hear of their many adventures, from a Beatles concert in Wellington to an unfortunate trip

down a river on a hand-built raft.

He will take us from the battlefield of Monte Cassino where his dad fought in WW2 to his own traumatic experiences in the war in Vietnam. It is a journey that lets us understand and sympathise with Michael.

He is a man scarred by life and haunted by memories but there are good times too  — pranks played while training at the Waiouru Army base and happy days when courting his wife-to-be.

Under the direction of Norman Maclean, who first brought the play to Gisborne in 1991 after seeing it in Wellington and being so impressed he wanted to share it with Gisborne audiences, Michael James Manaia is a masterful piece of theatre.

With a simple set and minimal props the power is in a story well-told.

Mulligan is utterly believable as he traverses time looping back at the end to the birth of his child.

When speaking with Lawrence last week he said he wanted to bring the story to life — to make it real and relatable. He has succeeded in doing both.