Lyrical tribute to Nepia
Lynn Freeman
I, George Nepia, Directed by Jason Te Kare, Circa Two, to September 16. Reviewed by Lynn Freeman
BACK when our All Blacks were invincible, and were adored and respected for playing for the love of the game as amateurs, came heroes like George Nepia. As part of the Invincibles he was one of just two Maori on the team and aware that his colour was a barrier. But he broke through with his natural athleticism, great good humour, enthusiasm, tactical skills and mana to become a hero for generations to come.
Hone Kouka has written a lyrical and deeply affecting tribute to Nepia. He entrusted his exquisitely written script to director Jason Te Kare and actor Jarod Rawiri and together these three make a formidable team.
Te Kare has in Rawiri an actor who moves with the strength of a rugby player and the grace of a dancer. He engages with the audience from the first moment he gazes out at us with the affection of a grandfather. One moment Rawiri is Nepia at the end of his life, standing on a field of possibilities, where he is immersed in memories as he awaits an important meeting. He shakes his head when he thinks how being able to throw and kick a ball made out of leather changed his life, from farmhand to sporting hero. In a flash Rawiri becomes young Nepia, a 19 year old determined to change the flow of history, just for a moment.
Kouka avoids a simple chronology, instead we follow Nepia’s stream of consciousness as he goes back and forth in time. Helping us keep up with the timeshifts is the video backdrop of line drawings which transform from the sea to the stadium.
At one- and-a-quarter hours, this is a succinct and poetic play. We could do with more flesh on the bones of his wife and children and his time in Nuhaka but that’s a minor point in a play that reminds us of a great man who was at once ambitious and genuinely humble.
BACK when our All Blacks were invincible, and were adored and respected for playing for the love of the game as amateurs, came heroes like George Nepia. As part of the Invincibles he was one of just two Maori on the team and aware that his colour was a barrier. But he broke through with his natural athleticism, great good humour, enthusiasm, tactical skills and mana to become a hero for generations to come.
Hone Kouka has written a lyrical and deeply affecting tribute to Nepia. He entrusted his exquisitely written script to director Jason Te Kare and actor Jarod Rawiri and together these three make a formidable team.
Te Kare has in Rawiri an actor who moves with the strength of a rugby player and the grace of a dancer. He engages with the audience from the first moment he gazes out at us with the affection of a grandfather. One moment Rawiri is Nepia at the end of his life, standing on a field of possibilities, where he is immersed in memories as he awaits an important meeting. He shakes his head when he thinks how being able to throw and kick a ball made out of leather changed his life, from farmhand to sporting hero. In a flash Rawiri becomes young Nepia, a 19 year old determined to change the flow of history, just for a moment.
Kouka avoids a simple chronology, instead we follow Nepia’s stream of consciousness as he goes back and forth in time. Helping us keep up with the timeshifts is the video backdrop of line drawings which transform from the sea to the stadium.
At one- and-a-quarter hours, this is a succinct and poetic play. We could do with more flesh on the bones of his wife and children and his time in Nuhaka but that’s a minor point in a play that reminds us of a great man who was at once ambitious and genuinely humble.
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