Home Fires: Creating a Pacific Theatre in the Diaspora

Abstract

Theatre created by Pacific Islanders is perhaps the most recent significant development in New Zealand theatre of the 1990s. Exploring this new phenomenon within a concept of diaspora, productions, producers and themes are linked to notions of displacement, home, and disruption on several levels. Three recent plays and productions are examined: Think of a Garden by the Samoan-American John Kneubuhl, which explores memory as the basis of diasporic identity; Home Fires, a collaborative production between Pacific Island and Ma°ori artists in which a new kind of syncretic theatrical style transcending specific cultural codes was developed; and Tatau – Rites of Passage, a performance created by the Christchurch-based group Pacific Underground and the Australian community theatre group Zeal Theatre which explores the notion of ritual reincorporation – involving actual tattooing on stage – as a means of transcending diaspora and repairing the ruptures caused by it.