Latest news with #BlackFaggot
The Spinoff
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
Why do so many New Zealand plays have such short lives?
Playwright Sam Brooks on the importance of looking back to move forward. Theatre is an ephemeral art form. That's the beauty of it. For an hour or two, the performance exists for the people who are in the same room as it, and then it goes away. The next night, the same actors might say the same lines in the same places, but it's still different. It's never the exact same thing. Then the play closes, and it goes away. Sometimes, it goes away forever. Whether it happened at a tiny fringe venue or a massive stage, there are plays that are one-and-done, for whatever reason. That's especially true in New Zealand, which unfortunately lacks a culture of revival, or revisiting shows. Reviving a show is something that the average theatregoer might be aware of without knowing the exact definition. Essentially, it's the practice of putting on a show again after its premiere run, with a completely new team and interpretation. The recent production of Black Faggot that played at Christchurch's Court Theatre and then Q Theatre is a revival of the 2013 production, for example, with none of the same creative team. That's meaningfully distinct from, say, Silo Theatre's upcoming production of Mother Play – while it might be a New Zealand premiere, it is a completely new production. Other countries, particularly those with strong theatregoing traditions, have much stronger revival cultures. Shows get enshrined into the canon and have new productions, and new interpretations of them produced regularly, with people often showing up in droves. For example: If you're a certain brand of homosexual, you'll have strong opinions on Audra McDonald's take on Gypsy's protagonist Gypsy Rose Lee compared to Patti LuPone's take, compared to Bernadette Peters', and so on. If that meant nothing to you, sub in 'All Blacks kicker' for 'Gypsy Rose Lee', 'Dan Carter' for 'Audra McDonald', 'Beauden Barrett' for Patti LuPone', and 'Andrew Mehrtens' for 'Bernadette Peters' (apologies to both fans of musical theatre and the ABs). This is the kind of thing that doesn't happen here, even for international plays. There have been two professional productions of A Streetcar Named Desire in Auckland in my lifetime, for example, which means two chances for me, and any Auckland theatregoer, to see one of the most acclaimed plays of all time. New Zealand, simply put, does not have that same culture of revival – especially when it comes to our own 'canon'. Once a play is performed, it often exists for its initial season and very rarely again. There are a few reasons for that. The relative youth of playwriting in this country is one of those – Roger Hall's Glide Time is widely regarded as the turning point for audiences recognising that New Zealand could generate its own theatre is only 50 years old, and even the grandfather of New Zealand theatre, End of the Golden Weather, is just 75 years old. (That one was actually revived earlier this year, as the show that opened Christchurch's Court Theatre's new venue.) The worldwide theatre canon is hundreds, even thousands of years old. Compared to that, our canon may as well be a catalogue – and I might say that our best plays hold their own on the world stage with theatre cultures older and better supported. This same thinking has also historically been applied to basically anything New Zealand has succeeded at, but I promise it is also true of theatre. We also have a culture of making, and developing, new work. We develop, we produce, we premiere and we move on. Premiere productions being performed only once is an issue that extends beyond the cultural to the commercial – getting funding for a new work is easy, for whatever reason, but increasingly difficult for subsequent remounts. It does mean, however, that there are absolute diamonds that exist for one moment of brilliance, remembered by only those who saw them, before dipping into the archives, with only the most nerdy theatre people remembering they existed. (I think of work like Silo Theatre's Cellfish, and Miria George's and what remains as works that feel even more relevant now than when they premiered.) There is also a lack of access, for commercial reasons. We are a small country where theatre is often vying for funding against art forms with deeper roots, which means less money is available for venues to stay open, companies to develop and produce theatre, and even for playwrights to write them. With perhaps a little bit too much transparency: of the 53 plays I've written, I have been commissioned to write once, and received funding from Creative New Zealand to write two of these. The rest have been written under my own steam. In short: Less money means less art, less art being made means less art being seen, means less art in the canon. That access extends to it being difficult to find and read scripts in the first place. Places like Unity and second-hand bookstores might have a play section, but very rarely will you find New Zealand plays there. Similarly, libraries might have a resource, but while a great many New Zealand plays have been published, they are more representative of our canon than they are entirely reflective. Playmarket, New Zealand's playwriting agency, is a great resource for New Zealand work if it takes your fancy! Also? Reading a play – and I say this in earnest as someone who both writes and reads plays – is not the most interesting thing. It's a very different thing to imagine the world of a play in your mind compared to, say, imagining the world of a novel. Plays are often written for enthusiasts and experts to read and interpret, not for a general audience. They're less like books and more like blueprints. A play isn't like a book. It's not a song. It's not like a movie – even in the rare case when a play is filmed, it's no substitute for actually being there. Once those things are produced, they exist. If they're lucky enough to be a part of the canon, they're enshrined in perpetuity. Plays are a different beast. 'You had to be there' is tragically real – for a play if you actually weren't there for the premiere production, there's a very real chance that you might have missed it. This week at Auckland's Basement Theatre, I've been fortunate enough to be asked to curate a series of playreadings called Firing the Canon, which will involve five plays being performed for free, with 37 actors, emerging and experienced, performing across the week. These five include the aforementioned Glide Time by Roger Hall (marking his Basement Theatre debut), Smashed by Tawhi Thomas, Rēwena by Whiti Hereaka, The Packer by Dianna Fuemana and Cow by Jo Randerson. The goal is for the series to run long-term, in venues across the country, and to breathe new life into plays that might otherwise not be performed, for any of the above reasons. There's no way I can cover the huge spectrum of New Zealand theatre with only five plays. I couldn't even do it with 50. But it's a little bit of a light shone in the right direction. Our theatre history might not be as huge as the UK's, or the USA's, but it's pretty mighty. But without an audience showing up, an audience taking interest, it might not be there at all. Theatre is an ephemeral form, but when an audience shows up, it can feel eternal.
The Spinoff
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
Review: Black Faggot is as relevant now as it was 10 years ago
Sam Brooks reviews the revival of Victor Rodger's seminal play. I remember seeing Victor Rodger's Black Faggot over a decade ago at the Basement Theatre studio. The show had a simple concept – the queer experience told through a Samoan lens, with two actors playing multiple characters, loosely linked by having some relationship to queerness, be they queer people themselves, or simply being in a room with another queer person. It was a hit. The show sold out that initial run in the 65-seat theatre, and toured around the country for over two years with multiple actors switching in and out of the roles, including Beulah Koale, Shimpal Lelisi, Taofia Pelesasa and Fasitua Amosa. It resonated with audiences not just because of the performances and Rodger's trademark sense of humour – absolutely that of a gay man raised on sitcoms and classic Hollywood, but provocatively cheeky – but because it was the first time that most of its audience had ever seen this particular experience onstage. New Zealand is a country that is notoriously bad at reviving plays, even successful ones. Whether it's due to a lack of spaces, funding, or audiences is anybody's guess – it's probably an awful mix of all three. Too often plays get initial runs before all that remains are hazy memories, with the occasional drama nerd pulling a scene or monologue out for an audition or NCEA exam. That's why it's a treat to see any work, really, but especially a work like this, revived. While Black Faggot went around the country for quite a long time – if you didn't see it and wanted to, it's absolutely on you – theatre audiences are different 10 years on. We're in a renaissance of Pasifika theatre, heralded in part by Rodger's championing of other playwrights and poets himself, and Black Faggot is absolutely part of that legacy that deserves to be seen, even re-examined, to quantify that renaissance. Ten years ago, Rodger was one of New Zealand's leading playwrights. Now, he's still that, but he's got an ONZM and is an Arts Laureate to boot. (Director Anapela Polaitavao also, not coincidentally, also has an ONZM and is an Arts Laureate.) The current production sees actors Jake Tupu (Auckland Theatre Company's production of Dawn Raids) and newcomer Gideon Smith take on the kaleidoscope of roles that Rodger has gifted them with. And they really are gifts for the actors; Rodger gives them sharp dialogue and sharper punchlines, and characters across the age, gender and sexuality spectrum. In one moment they can be playing a gay couple arguing about 'mess' on a wall, and in the next, a parent questioning why their son has a poster of Sonny Bill Williams on his roof. Tupu is particularly excellent in inhabiting his roles, although if there's one thing that this production highlights, it's that one actor, Smith in this instance, is often playing set-up to the other actor's spike. It unbalances the production slightly, but never enough to truly detract from the experience. Polataivao lends the production the sort of elegance and grace that an audience has come to expect from her previous work, including Wild Dogs Under My Skirt and The Savage Coloniser Show. The staging is simple and unobtrusive – a stained glass square for the actors to perform in, a large hibiscus flower blooming towards the back of the stage. There are no bells and whistles to the show, and there needn't be. This is ultimately a show that is about characters simply living their lives, queer or otherwise, and frankly, many of those characters are theatrical enough to not need any outside support. A show like Black Faggot shouldn't still be as relevant. Like its spiritual predecessor, Toa Fraser's Bare, it should feel like it captures a moment in time, like lightning in a bottle. But whereas Bare has aged into an absolutely lovely, non-controversial picture of urban New Zealand in the 90s, Black Faggot feels as though it could have been written yesterday (with some jokes ageing like cheap wine, as jokes unfortunately tend to do). The characters and conversations that Rodger is putting in front of us still feel startling, even new. Broadly speaking, queer people still face prejudice and in 2025, there are parts of society that feel even less safe, less open to these kinds of conversation than we were back in 2013. The pockets of society that would been shocked by the lives on display in Black Faggot back then are still likely to be shocked, and are likely even more entrenched in the worldview that allows them to be so. At least on opening night, the unobtrusive but still noticeable presence of a security guard outside Q Theatre was a reminder that the subject matter that Rodger is exploring has become even more polarised amongst a vocal, active, minority. A decade ago, no such security was necessary. There is a glimmer of light within that relevance, however – and it's the thing that was strongest about Black Faggot all those years ago. It's that it isn't a big show. It isn't a show where characters move mountains, metaphorically or otherwise. It isn't a show with heroes and villains. All the characters portrayed onstage, whether they're a young kid pleading with God, a couple fighting about an unfortunate mess on the wallpaper, or a mother wrestling with her kid's sexuality, are just people living their lives. As queer people have always done, and despite some shitty people who think otherwise, will continue to do. That reminder will never not be relevant, and will always be welcome.
NZ Herald
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Black Faggot's Victor Rodger on Destiny Church and why his groundbreaking play remains so relevant today
Like a lot of young homosexuals, it made me feel a lot of self-loathing. But I wasn't raised to denigrate people who were gay. My mother was very young when she had me – she turns 72 this year – but she elected to keep me and I'm so grateful she did. She let me do swirly swirlies in her blue dress when I was going through my Deborah Kerr phase, from The King and I, and she got me the Barbie dolls I craved as a young fella. She was still surprised when I came out when I was 26, but she's always just let me be. When Destiny Church led its 'Enough is Enough' march on Parliament in 2004 against the Civil Union Bill [giving legal recognition to same-sex relationships], I knew without a doubt that at least one of those young men would be gay. Hating on themselves and marching against themselves. I wanted to write something metaphorically for that kid. Then, in 2012, there were more protests against the marriage equality bill, with members of the Pasifika community coming out against it. I knew it was time to finally get over the line. Victor Rodger: "Some seriously appalling things are going down in our own backyard." Photo / Dean Purcell Black Faggot premiered at Auckland's Basement Theatre in 2013. I wanted it to be funny, which it is, and I also wanted to diversify the spectrum of Samoan queer characters, who until then had often been typified by fa'afafine as objects of mirth, with no complexity or layers. Two actors play multiple roles, mostly queer Samoan men, from super camp to super butch and everything in between. There's also a fa'afafine, a Samoan mum, and a pumping iron straight brother, but the spine of the show is a relationship between a young Samoan man on the down low and an out-and-proud Samoan man. When I heard The Court Theatre in Christchurch wanted Black Faggot on its programme this year, I wondered if it was still relevant. I'd thought about doing it myself in 2023, for the 10th anniversary, and had asked myself the same question. A few years ago, I was a dramaturg on a trans rom-com about a Tongan fakaleiti at high school and the captain of the First XV, who takes a bet that he can make her fall in love with him. When we did our first showing to a group of students, they were just so invested in the trans main character having a happy ending. For me, as an older, queer person, I was blown away because that never would have happened in my era. Destiny Church members wearing Man Up T-shirts disrupt the Auckland Rainbow Parade on Ponsonby Road in February. But as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I was in the UK when I saw the headlines: 'Brian Tamaki's Destiny Church pride protests: Te Atatū witness describes terror inside library'. I wasn't expecting something like that to happen, but it didn't surprise me, either. We are living through a period in history right now that is as startling as it is unstable. And here in Aotearoa, we can't kid ourselves that we're in a position to look overseas and say 'Well, at least it's not that bad here', because some seriously appalling things are going down in our own backyard. Back in 2013, I wanted to pull Black Faggot. I was unravelling over all sorts of other life stuff and had convinced myself it was the worst piece of shit that had ever been committed to paper. Everything felt pretty grim and dark. The premiere got a standing ovation, but even that offered no relief. With this new season, I've been able to engage with the show from a much better place. I forbade my mother from seeing it, but she disobeyed me and went to the opening night in Christchurch, which is where I grew up. She's always been concerned with the amount of swearing in my work and that people will think she raised me to talk in the gutter. I did that all on my own. She's also not a great fan of sex, and there's a lot of sex talk in the show. But she coped and was blown away by the two actors, one of whom is the son of a family friend from the same church. There are moments in it when you can hear a pin drop, like when the young Christian character keeps praying to God to be made straight. That resonates with so many of us who've been through the same thing, just wanting to be #normal. On the night I went, there was recognition and there was laughter, but the overriding emotion was celebratory. That's not a word I would have used, but seeing it now, I thought, yes, this is absolutely a celebration. And a necessary one. Victor Rodger is an award-winning playwright based in Wellington and a 2024 Arts Laureate. The new production of Black Faggot, directed by Anapela Polata'ivao (who starred in the feature film Tinā), has just completed a four-week season at The Court in Christchurch and is on at Auckland's Q Theatre from June 25 to 29.
Scoop
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Critically Acclaimed Actor And Director To Helm Black Faggot
Press Release – The Court Theatre Fresh off her critically acclaimed performance in the cinematic triumph Tinā, powerhouse actor and trailblazing creative Anapela Polata'ivao takes the director's seat for Black Faggot — the fearless and hilariously unfiltered play making its debut at The Court Theatre this month. Audiences are in for a raucously funny and emotionally raw ride, as Polata'ivao brings her signature insight and fierce compassion to this landmark production by award-winning playwright and producer Victor Rodger. Black Faggot was born from a moment of painful clarity. After witnessing a group of young people marching in a Destiny Church rally against same-sex marriage, Rodger reflected, 'At least one of those kids will be gay and feeling quite wretched about himself.' From this, he penned a series of (mostly) comedic, sometimes heartbreaking monologues that capture the kaleidoscope of queer Pasifika experiences in Aotearoa. Characters range from a closeted, flamboyant Destiny Church member reluctantly marching against civil unions, to a staunch and unashamedly proud gay man; from a fastidious Samoan lover distressed over a stained bedspread, to an award-winning fa'afafine artist boldly unpacking the meaning behind her newest piece, Cracker Wanna Poly. With razor-sharp humour, fearless honesty, and deep cultural resonance, Black Faggot is funny, filthy, tender, and unflinchingly real. A breakout hit at the Edinburgh Fringe, the show has enjoyed multiple sold-out seasons in New Zealand and Australia. This new production stars Gideon Smith (Grafted, Camp Be Better) and Court Theatre favourite Jake Tupu (Palu (Ē Toru), Fresh Off the Boat, O Le Malaga Fa'a'Atua), promising an unforgettable experience packed with comic brilliance and heart. Anapela Polata'ivao is no stranger to telling powerful Pasifika stories. As a director, actor, and creative leader, she has long been a champion for Pacific voices on stage and screen. In 2024, she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her outstanding service to the arts. Her recent role in Tinā — the debut feature film by Miki Magasiva — further cemented her status as one of Aotearoa's most compelling performers. Tinā, a love letter to Samoan culture and the transformative power of choral music, follows the journey of Mareta (Polata'ivao), a mother reeling from the loss of her daughter in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Taking a teaching job at a wealthy, predominantly Pākehā school, Mareta finds herself connecting with a group of students who, like her, are searching for healing. Her journey leads them all the way to the Big Sing National Choir Competition. Polata'ivao's performance was universally praised — a complex, emotional tour de force that anchored the film and underscored her extraordinary range. Now, with Black Faggot, she turns her focus to the stage once more, ready to deliver a production that is as provocative as it is profound.
Scoop
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Critically Acclaimed Actor And Director To Helm Black Faggot
Fresh off her critically acclaimed performance in the cinematic triumph Tinā, powerhouse actor and trailblazing creative Anapela Polata'ivao takes the director's seat for Black Faggot — the fearless and hilariously unfiltered play making its debut at The Court Theatre this month. Audiences are in for a raucously funny and emotionally raw ride, as Polata'ivao brings her signature insight and fierce compassion to this landmark production by award-winning playwright and producer Victor Rodger. Black Faggot was born from a moment of painful clarity. After witnessing a group of young people marching in a Destiny Church rally against same-sex marriage, Rodger reflected, 'At least one of those kids will be gay and feeling quite wretched about himself.' From this, he penned a series of (mostly) comedic, sometimes heartbreaking monologues that capture the kaleidoscope of queer Pasifika experiences in Aotearoa. Characters range from a closeted, flamboyant Destiny Church member reluctantly marching against civil unions, to a staunch and unashamedly proud gay man; from a fastidious Samoan lover distressed over a stained bedspread, to an award-winning fa'afafine artist boldly unpacking the meaning behind her newest piece, Cracker Wanna Poly. With razor-sharp humour, fearless honesty, and deep cultural resonance, Black Faggot is funny, filthy, tender, and unflinchingly real. A breakout hit at the Edinburgh Fringe, the show has enjoyed multiple sold-out seasons in New Zealand and Australia. This new production stars Gideon Smith (Grafted, Camp Be Better) and Court Theatre favourite Jake Tupu (Palu (Ē Toru), Fresh Off the Boat, O Le Malaga Fa'a'Atua), promising an unforgettable experience packed with comic brilliance and heart. Anapela Polata'ivao is no stranger to telling powerful Pasifika stories. As a director, actor, and creative leader, she has long been a champion for Pacific voices on stage and screen. In 2024, she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her outstanding service to the arts. Her recent role in Tinā — the debut feature film by Miki Magasiva — further cemented her status as one of Aotearoa's most compelling performers. Tinā, a love letter to Samoan culture and the transformative power of choral music, follows the journey of Mareta (Polata'ivao), a mother reeling from the loss of her daughter in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Taking a teaching job at a wealthy, predominantly Pākehā school, Mareta finds herself connecting with a group of students who, like her, are searching for healing. Her journey leads them all the way to the Big Sing National Choir Competition. Polata'ivao's performance was universally praised — a complex, emotional tour de force that anchored the film and underscored her extraordinary range. Now, with Black Faggot, she turns her focus to the stage once more, ready to deliver a production that is as provocative as it is profound.
