Poetry, politics, the past and the present: Interweaving Maori postcolonial theatre with Bertolt Brecht in Kilimogo’s production of Apirana Taylor’s Whaea Kairau: Mother Hundred-Eater

This article examines ways in which the concept of resistance – in a postcolonial sense – has been articulated in Maori theatre, and in particular by Maori playwright, actor and poet Apirana Taylor during a period that might be loosely termed the ‘Maori renaissance’. Specifically, the article focuses upon how resistance plays out theatrically in Kilimogo Productions’ presentation of Taylor’s play Whaea Kairau: Mother Hundred-Eater, performed in Otepoti/Dunedin in 1999. Taylor’s and Kilimogo’s contributions to Maori theatre’s function as a theatre of resistance are duly examined. Alongside a postcolonial critical stance, the article evaluates how the Brechtian elements of Verfremdungseffekt, Gestus and historicization can be applied to Maori theatre in a way that complements rather than colonizes. Theatrical strategies found in Taylor’s play and Kilimogo’s production provide the spectator with the Brechtian experience of Verfremdungseffekt, but simultaneously accommodate the undergirding principles of Kaupapa Maori and Maori tikanga (Maori topics, policies, agendas or initiatives, and customary cultural practices). These theatrical strategies allow for a dialectical engagement between cultural signifiers and texts, and for the possibility of contradiction in the theatrical image. A sense of complex undecidability is consequently evident in Kilimogo’s production of Whaea Kairau. Whilst acknowledging Bertolt Brecht’s legacy and influence, the article also recognizes his complex status as a canonized theatre-maker in this particular postcolonial context, and therefore looks at ways in which Kilimogo’s production both utilizes and interrogates Brecht’s tenets.