No 2 at the Maidment Theatre

By SUSAN BUDD

At the Maidment Theatre this week, an extraordinarily varied group ranging from streetwise youth to snow-haired octogenarians joined in laughter and thunderous applause for a 21-year-old playing a host of characters from a small boy to an ancient but feisty matriarch.

Even after hundreds of performances, Madeleine Sami retains the freshness and vitality she gave to the first shows in 1999. Maturity lends depth to the scintillating brilliance that has blown away audiences and critics, from Edinburgh to Tasmania.

Toa Fraser's play is as awesome as Sami's performance. The interplay between members of a Fijian/New Zealand family over the few hours in which they prepare for the feast at which Nana Maria will name her successor is tightly woven, their idiosyncrasies finely detailed, in the warm, generous creation of a mass of humanity in a Mt Roskill house.

Nana Maria is a puppeteer, manipulating the younger members of her family with sly relish as she pits one against the other in the race for her favour. She rejoices in the turmoil of jealousy and competition - there's time for peace and boredom when you are dead.

Her favourite is Moses, a child genius with a flinty perception of every adult foible and hidden desire.

Fraser is not always kind to her characters, ruthlessly revealing pettiness and self doubt, bullying and naked ambition. Hibiscus Maria, spoiled, envious and not very bright, is dying for power and her mother, Charlene, despite her hard work, will all too obviously never gain control. And neither is happy with the presence of Maria, All Black prospect Tyson's English girlfriend, as she gets gloriously drunk with Nana and then threatens to seduce 15-year-old spunk Sol on the dance floor.