Sons of Vao
Image credit: Auckland Theatre Company
Currently playing at the ASB Waterfront Theatre, Sons of Vao by Vela Manusaute and directed by Anapela Polata’viao.
The play centres around Vao, played by Beulah Kaole, a Samoan father raising his three sons with his Niuean wife on Niue. The family live in a simple home and lead an atypical village life. His young boys take solace in the dreaminess of American films which portray a very different existence to theirs.
Vao is the eminent patriarch; he is proud yet domineering, aggressive and his family fear him. His forceful fatherhood is the cornerstone of the play where the well written dialogue is punctuated by the physicality of the acting. The heaviness of this storyline of a proud man who works his crops and is the master of the machete, is lightened by notes of humour and levity offered by his sons; Sau, Seki and To, played by Brett Taefu, Epine Bob Savea and Haanz Fa’avae-Jackson.
The family relocated to New Zealand in the late 1970s and they enjoy a happy existence as they embrace new cultural experiences. Air travel, Ponsonby, ‘Days of our Lives ‘ on television, and sunlight soap are some of the featured highlights. The elation of their new life is somewhat short lived as they move in with older relatives and the reality of their economic position made obvious by the contrast to their wealthier palagi school mates.
All families are complex and the complexities are deeper when navigating life in a new country, in a new culture, under the cloud of alcoholism and violence. It would be easy and lazy to simply hate Vao, a man and father so broken and flawed.
The stories of Pacific migration to Aotearoa remain important and we should be grateful such raw stories that begin as real life experiences are told by such terrific local talented artists. This play is worth seeing.