Adam Goodall for The Pantograph Punch | 16 December 2016
Adam Goodall takes stock of the triumphs, the anxieties and the must-do-betters of Wellington theatre in 2016.
A story of two Māori brothers on opposite sides of the Pākehā settlement of Pōneke, Helen Pearse-Otene's Dog & Bone, staged by Taki Rua and Te Rākau, was rich in history and charged up with the energy of its 27-strong ensemble, led by muscular, fiercely-connected performances from men of the hour Errol Anderson and Jamie McCaskill.
Detailing the damage wrought across families and iwi by British colonisation, Dog & Bone was a tragedy passionately told and it sent shivers up my spine every other scene.
The play is the second part of the underTOW, Pearse-Otene’s planned four-part epic of local history, and all four parts play at Te Papa’s Soundings Theatre next month. It is imperative that you go.