Short St Studio, Dunedin
Friday, March 13
REVIEWED BY MARIAN POOLE
A near-capacity audience became engrossed by Dunedin Fringe event We Remember Wrong at the Short St Studio on Friday.
Presented by JCR Productions, and written and directed by Jackson Rosie (Kāi Tahu), We Remember Wrong turns the precolonial and colonial history of Aotearoa on its head.
Its protagonists, stripped of their identity, wake up in a nightmare world, with white-masked prisoners who infiltrate their memories with their own narrative. Kiwa, the navigator, becomes the coloniser of Sophie, the indigenous New Zealand European and Greek goddess of wisdom. Both start their voyage as innocents.
The play has a wide and importantly alarmingly contemporary scope. It explores the impact of the currently visible misinformation with that of our whitewashed and dangerously invisible history. It exposes our inability and discomfort with distinguishing truth from within our glass houses which trap us in a state of disbelief.
We are presented with the fatal consequences of a release button. Here the punishment meted on to Kiwa, re-envisaged as the coloniser, reflects that meted out in truth on Kiwa the navigator. It also explores the risks to those who fall from grace in their attempt to navigate knowledge, by drawing a door between those histories.
With minimal props, two beds, video footage and black space it amalgamates works with similar guilts, such as Prisoner, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Black Mirror. Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand sets the scene for actors Warren Loulanting, Zoe Burden and Chris Cook, with help from Eva Clarke, Izzy Daley, Nevaeh McKenzie, Thomas Burns, Zach Hall and Andrew Matheson.
Credit also to Milla Swanson-Dobbs (lighting), Shannon Burnett (sound), production crew Grace Basel, Andrew Matheson and Mathew Morgan and support from DCC and Boosted.
Theatre tackling persistent issues in Aotearoa provides its own imperative.
