Maidment Studio, Auckland
Review: Susan Budd
Mapaki is an absorbing short play, beautifully written and dynamically performed by Dianna Fuemana.
The small world of Fisi, a young Niuean woman, is delineated with strength and delicacy. It is both strange and appallingly familiar, a world in which love is remembered as childhood comfort and teenage romantic yearnings, but remains elusive in maturity, as elusive as the Niuean language that she almost remembers.
Fisi's first love is her Nan, to whom she was given by her parents as a gift. Cups of Milo, television soap operas and soft, fluffy slippers fill her cosy world. Victor Newman from The Young and the Restless is the perfect, longed-for lover, ardent and non-threatening. Diane Prince, Wonderwoman herself, is her role model.
But Jason is Fisi's first and only love. They meet in the spacies parlour, swim in the Black Hole pool and live unhappily ever after. For Jason is a black hole, demanding and absorbing love but incapable of giving it.
The scene of his first, inarticulate attempt at lovemaking is superbly realised by Fuemana. The words jerkily escape from his lips as his hand creeps up his thigh towards his genitals, only to scurry away like a frightened spider.
It is very funny and terribly sad, foreshadowing the pain that is to come.
His macho posturing serves only to hide his insecurity. When his boast, "My missus knows her place," is contradicted by Fisi's appearance at the pub, he erupts in violent anger, afraid of losing face before his mates.
Fa'aafine Gina, Fisi's best and only friend, stands between them, a wonderfully earthy character, guying masculine and feminine behaviour alike.
It is only her presence that hints at the possibility that Fisi may be able to move on from her confession, "I don't know why I stopped loving myself."
Fuemana plays all three characters with verve, moving from the shy delicacy of Fisi, to Gina's exuberance, to Jason's glottal shouts and struts smoothly, surely and with incredible speed. Her performance is a tour de force, ably assisted by Hori Ahipene's direction and Jennifer Lal's evocative lighting design.
<i>Performance:</i> Mapaki
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.