Naked Samoans: The Trilogy at the Herald Theatre

By SUSAN BUDD

The Naked Samoans are well named. Though their bodies are covered, their emotions and beliefs are exposed.

Their fierce convictions are not expressed with rage or hectoring pomposity, but with glorious, manic and generous humour. By assuming the mantle of extreme racism and spraying every ethnic group with racist jibes, they reveal its absurdity and injustice.

In presenting a man who terrorises his wife and children as appallingly funny, they do more for the cause of preventing domestic violence than any bleeding-heart television campaign.

The godfearing mother who beats her son with frying pan, iron cord and golf club, all in the name of love, raised the biggest laughs of the show - and the most bitter aftertaste.

It is humour that shows the indescribable and unmentionable, and at the same time reveals and defuses acts that for all their horror are human.

Artistic pretension is another target, beautifully skewered in a hilariously graceful modern dance and a simply awful short film, full of super-tight close-ups and meaningful narrowing of the eyes.

Highlights have been taken from their first three shows and some new material added. Although the storyline is slight and frequently very silly, The Trilogy is tight, fast and compelling theatre.

Dave Fane, Mario Gaoa, Iaheto Ah Hi, Oscar Kightley and Shimpal Lelisi form a dream ensemble.

The self-described "actor extra-ordinaire" Fane is exactly that, switching characters with ease, speed and precision.

He flicks with style and sincerity from the grimly comic father to a simpering young girl, to training college graduate and wannabe agent Mackerel, whose imitation Maori welcome at a powhiri earns him a beating and worse.

His ending of the show, which he begins with the epilogue from A Midsummer Night's Dream and then segues into a simple and moving plea for the audience to understand the reality of violence and abuse that has touched the lives of all the cast, is finally undercut by a rough joke.

It is dangerous, and it works, which could be the motto for the show.