![]() ![]() The cast of The Savage Coloniser Show in Auckland Arts Festival. It can be easy to worry that local work might not stand up to international work – there hasn’t been the same time to hone a show on the touring market, or the same amount of money thrown at it – but The Savage Coloniser Show announces itself as world class from the jump. Each of Avia’s poems (plus a few new ones, including a choice one about garages in South Auckland ) is presented theatrically some split up between the entire cast, some shared between two. Anapela Polatai’vao remains the best director in the country of this kind of theatrical performance poetry, shepherding a tremendous cast (with a few names you’ll recognise from the screen, like Frankie Adams and Stacey Leilua) to work brilliantly among festival-worthy design from Filament 11 and Elizabeth Whiting. For stupid reasons, The Savage Coloniser Show has become the focus of an illiterate culture war, but the sold-out opening night at Q Theatre couldn’t have felt any further from the controversy.Īs expected from FCC theatre company by this point, this is a production of unparalleled excellence. The show, adapted from Tusiata Avia’s Ockham-winning poetry collection, is the follow-up to the internationally acclaimed Wild Dogs Under My Skirt of 2019, inarguably the best show of its year in Auckland. The Savage Coloniser Show is, for better or (often) worse, the biggest headline from the first week of the festival. Sam Brooks reviews four shows from the first week. The Auckland Arts Festival has returned with a bang, a splash, and a controversy – so business as usual.
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