When veteran Pasifika theatre directors Vela Manusaute and Anapela Polata’lvao first worked with Leki Jackson-Bourke, the Tongan-Niuean-Samoan playwright-actor was only 18 and had just finished high school. The couple cast him in a play – as a tree.
He stood on stage with his arms spread out for the entire performance. Jackson-Bourke says his dedication proved he was determined to make it in theatre.
Ten years on, Jackson-Bourke, who has since forged a successful career as an award-winning playwright, has reunited with Manusaute and Polata’lvao on the Auckland Theatre Company’s production of Red, White and Brass, a stage adaptation of last year’s hit local film about a hastily assembled Tongan community band playing at the Rugby World Cup in 2011.
Manusaute and Polata’lvao are the play’s co-directors; Jackson-Bourke scripted the adaptation.
“I’ve dubbed Vela and Anapela my godparents because they have been with me from the very beginning,” Jackson-Bourke explains.
“I’ve learnt everything from them. They’ve taken me around the world, we have an understanding and a special flow. We know how each other rolls and we are all passionate about Pacific storytelling.”
Manusaute, who is Niuean/Samoan and Polata’lvao, who is Samoan, have been instrumental in nurturing Pasifika talent, with their former theatre company Kila Kokonut Krew and producing international tours of their productions like the Pasifika musical The Factory. Seeing one of their prodigies graduate from playing a tree to helping to write for one of the country’s biggest theatre companies is a testament to their commitment to Pasifika storytelling.
“Leki had this gift. He had grit, was fiercely intelligent and his determination made him stand out,” says Polata’lvao.
Halaifonua “Nua” Finau, who wrote the film based on his own true story, didn’t object to handing over the reins. The film is inspired by the time Finau and his church members in Wellington formed a traditional Tongan marching band just so they could see Tonga play France at the 2011 Rugby World Cup. In one of the biggest shocks of the tournament, Tonga beat France, 19-14, sending the Wellington stadium, filled with Red Tongan flags, into hysteria.
“I’ve never written for theatre before; I’ve only written for TV and film,” says Finau, whose credits include co-producing The Panthers series. “I don’t know the rhythm of theatre; I don’t know the cadence. Whereas Vela, Anapela and Leki are seasoned practitioners and have been in the game for a very long time, especially when it comes to telling our stories from the Pacific. It made me feel comfortable they were at the helm.”
Finau was encouraged to write Red, White and Brass after telling producers about how his Tongan church brass band had once performed at the Rugby World Cup to get free tickets.
The film got the backing of Piki Films, the production house of Taika Waititi and Carthew Neal. It became the highest-grossing New Zealand movie of 2023.
“This is the first thing that I ever wrote. The success of the film has gone beyond my wildest dreams, I initially only wanted to make this film for my cousins and my friends and to get a screen credit as a writer and producer. Because I knew that as a writer it’s hard to unlock any funding without a screen credit.”
The idea to turn the film into a stage play came from co-producer Neal, who is friends with ATC artistic director Jonathan Bielski. When Neal broached the idea with Finau, he thought it made perfect sense. Most importantly, it meant that a Tongan story would reach a new audience.
“As we were making the film, it was clear there were many reasons that the story would work on the stage. There’s humour, musical elements, and the physicality of the scenes. So, I agreed with Carthew when he raised the question of turning the film into a stage production.”
He happily passed the baton, with one condition. “My only feedback to them was just don’t make this a shit version of the movie.” Jackson-Bourke says the biggest challenge in adapting the film was making sure the Tongan content was authentic.
“With any Pacific show, representation and visibility matter. We had all these wonderful ideas of how we could incorporate more cultural elements into the script and we had to make sure it flowed naturally without it being too contrived or forced.”
Despite the directors’ previous success with The Factory, and the film involving a band, they didn’t consider turning it into a musical. “We needed to keep the story and heart alive without adding too much cheese,” says Jackson-Bourke.
“In saying that … there’s a scene where Maka and Veni randomly bust out and start singing their lines and we thought it fitted perfectly.”
The play, he says, is essentially the same story with new scenes to flesh things out. “I tried my best to retain as much of the original script and film as possible but there were times in the workshop where we found things weren’t working on the floor.”
And how do they recreate a rugby stadium in a theatre? “When Nua, Carthew, the directors and I spoke about the difference between the film and the play, Carthew described it as, ‘It’s like the film but on steroids. It’s so fast paced and energetic, just like a rugby game.’
“There are a few scenes where the audience breaks the fourth wall to create the atmosphere of the rugby world. The vibrancy and colour in all the design also brings the feeling of the stadium along with some of the other elements of theatre – the voiceovers, the flags. Everything!”
The mainly Tongan cast has a mixture of experienced actors and up-and-comers. Returning from the film are lead John-Paul “JP” Foliaki, playing the character based on Finau, and Haanz Fa’avae-Jackson. Also, in the cast is former Miss Universe New Zealand, Diamond Langi in her first major theatre role. Manusaute and Polata’lvao didn’t hold auditions for the cast but picked actors with whom they have worked or who have shown talent at drama school.
Meanwhile, Finau is still pinching himself that this Tongan story, one about a moment in his life, is continuing to grow and influence audiences in New Zealand. “The film is in the Ministry of Education curriculum. So, primary schools and high schools study the film because it explores cultural identity in New Zealand. For the film to live beyond the screen, into classrooms, and now on the stage, shows that our Tongan stories, our Pacific stories, are important.”
Red, White and Brass, Auckland Theatre Company, ASB Waterfront Theatre, July 7.
The other great NZ films turned into stage shows
Red, White and Brass isn’t the first local movie to get a stage revival. We’ve turned some of our greatest films into ballets, musicals and puppet shows. And, it has to be said, some of them didn’t fare quite as well on the boards as they did on the screen.
Most recently, Jane Campion’s The Piano became a work for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and an accompanying documentary, The Heart Dances – the journey of The Piano: The Ballet, captured the creative and cultural tensions behind the work.
The other big New Zealand film of the early 1990s, Once Were Warriors, became a Broadway-styled stage musical. Ostensibly, it went back to Alan Duff’s book and reduced the role of Jake “the Muss” Heke, who dominated the film, but it still engaged the film’s writer, Riwia Brown, to create the script. It had veteran pop star Tina Cross in the role of Beth Heke singing heartfelt ballads, but its tour of the main centres in 2004 was met with lukewarm reviews and box office.
That was also the case with the lengthily titled The Whale Rider On Stage … A Journey Between Two Worlds of the same year. Arriving less than two years after the hit film, the production attempted to adapt Witi Ihimaera’s original story into something akin to the stage version of The Lion King, complete with songs composed by Hinewehi Mohi. Vicky Haughton and Rawiri Paratene revived their movie roles. Even with the spectacle of a giant moko-ed whale rising from the orchestra pit, the show was a critical and commercial failure. More recently, the story has had an acclaimed children’s theatre adaptation by Tim Bray, featuring a mix of actors and puppets.
Talking of kids … no, Footrot Flats the Musical wasn’t a stage adaptation of the 1986 animated movie. Written by Roger Hall and with lyrics by AK Grant, its debut at Christchurch’s Court Theatre came two years earlier. But occasional community theatre revivals of the production over the years have included some of the Dave Dobbyn songs that helped make the film a runaway hit on both sides of the Tasman.
The 2018 ATC production of Maurice Gee’s Kiwi kids’ classic Under the Mountain might have been a book first, but the show, like the 2009 movie version, also relied on memories of a generation who had first freaked out when they saw the early 1980s production on television.
As for the NZ screen-to-stage adaptation to win the “what-were-they-thinking?” prize, that must surely go to Braindead: The Musical. The Michael Hurst-directed 1995 adaptation of Peter Jackson’s 1992 zombie splatter comedy starred Headless Chickens singer Fiona McDonald, the late Kevin Smith and so much fake gore they put up a curtain between the stage and audience for the finale. After a season at Auckland’s Watershed Theatre and closing early at Downstage in Wellington, it died a natural death - Russell Baillie
