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Comedy sniffs out Mason’s legacy on home turf

Flagstaff Team

Through tinted glasses… Te Po writer Carl Bland (left) in an earlier cast featuring Andrew Grainger (centre) and Rawiri Paratene. Bland and Grainger are both back in the latest production.

Characters inspired by the work of renowned New Zealand playwright Bruce Mason will be brought to life in a show at the local theatre named after the one-time Takapuna resident.

To mark the centenary of Mason’s birth, Te Po is being staged at the Bruce Mason Theatre this month. Described as a surprising comedy, the play had its premiere at the 2016 Auckland Arts Festival, and won an Auckland Theatre excellence award the same year.

Though it is set in Takapuna, where Ma- son grew up, this is the first time it has been performed in the suburb. Its characters – a policeman, a priest and a blind man – grapple with clues to lead them to a missing Mason, drawing on his legacy of plays, reimagined in a contemporary work.

Director Ben Crowder says: “There’s something very special about paying tribute to Bruce Mason at the Bruce Mason Centre.”

Mason, who died in 1982, used Takapuna as a setting for some of his groundbreaking works, including The End of the Golden Weather, part of which is performed on the

beachside reserve each Christmas Day. The theatre named for him opened in 1996.

The Te Po ensemble includes noted actor and broadcaster Waihori Shortland, taking a role previously played by George Henare, and Rawiri Paratene. Shortland’s film career includes a role in Taika Waititi’s Boy and serving as cultural consultant for The Piano.

In 2002, he played Shylock/Hairoka in The Māori Merchant of Venice – the first film made in te reo Māori – which saw him named Best Actor at the NZ Film Awards.

When he was approached to play the role of Werihe in Te Po, the writing appealed, but the clincher was the opportunity to sing love songs in a Māori showband style, live on stage. The songs punctuate the play, giving resonance to the story of searching for someone you have loved and lost and finding them anew.

Joining Shortland in the Nightsong theatre-group production are Andrew Grainger and newcomer Anton Falstie-Jensen. The play’s writer Carl Bland also appears.

Te Po runs today, Friday 30 July at 10.30am and 8pm, and on Saturday 31 July at 6.30pm. For tickets book at the theatre or see ticketmaster.co.nz.

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