The Songmaker's Chair at the Maidment Theatre

By STUART YOUNG

There was a delightfully festive atmosphere at the premiere of The Songmaker's Chair. Albert Wendt's play features three generations of a Samoan family, gathered at the behest of Peseola, the songmaker, at his Freemans Bay house.

Wendt deftly structures the scenes to present his 10 characters in an impressive range of combinations that reveal the nature of the various relationships between siblings, husbands and wives, parents and children and so on. Not all of the individual stories are fully fleshed out; for example, one is curious to know more about Falani/Frank and the play he is writing.

However, the aiga - the family itself, is really the play's central character; this is shrewdly signified by having the entire cast onstage throughout.

Although the action is set in the one house and occurs largely within four days, we are taken to Samoa and other parts of Aotearoa, traversing more than 40 years. And Wendt cunningly complicates the issue of cultural (dis)location: Peseola's eldest son is married to a Palagi and his eldest daughter to a Maori.

There is much humour - some of it most accessible to Samoans in the audience - but, of course, beneath the jollity there are tensions, resentments and long-kept secrets which duly produce a traumatic crisis.

The principal tension is between Peseola and his younger daughter, an enigmatic figure whose estrangement is intriguingly emphasised by her isolation on the margins of the stage for much of the production.

This is an elegant, stylish production, featuring the sort of striking theatrical effects we have come to associate with Maori drama.

Sometimes the script prompts these effects: songs, Peseola's nightmares, or a talent quest. Otherwise, the directors, Nathaniel Lees (who also plays Peseola) and his assistant Nancy Brunning, have choreographed some powerful moments, in particular the solemn wrapping of Peseola in ie toga (fine mats) like a mummy.

The mise-en-scene is splendidly served by Sima Urale's beautiful and haunting projected video images and sound effects; Vera Thomas' lighting, with its warm tones and delicate lattice-work effects; and John Verryt's set. Verryt conjures up a villa with just two kauri doorframes set in a transparent gauze screen that suggests scrim walls and also allows for visual effects. The large, bare stage is carpeted with fala (mats), with the songmaker's chair as the sole piece of furniture.

The play is well served by the cast, with especially fine performances by Aleni Tufuga, Rachel Nash, Tamati Te Nohotu and Lees. However, the actors need to take care to project to the back rows of the theatre.