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Why I read the play I read APIRANA TAYLOR on Te Raukura: The Feathers of the Albatross
This play by Harry Dansey from the early 1970s was written to smash down locked doors. That is what it did and continues to do. A deeper level of understanding of Te Raukura is gained when the time it was written in and written about are understood. “This play is many things to me,” said Dansey, “but above all it is a tribute to my wife’s people from whom I gained many of the facts and all of the spirit of the times in which the play is set.” The play is set in the times of the Taranaki land wars in the 1860s and the ensuing resistance to land confiscation. It is epic in its scope and its aims. It attempts to cover hitherto littlecovered historical territory. We are taken to battle grounds, marae, Hauhau ceremonies, Parihaka and The House of Representatives amongst other places, as part of a guided tour through events of the era the drama is set. Historical figures Te Whiti, Grey, Te Ua Haumēne, Bryce, Fox, and others come and go throughout the two acts arguing over the issues confronting them and taking action over the conflicts they are caught in. Te Raukura was first performed in 1972 and published in 1974. This was a time
of increasing discontent for Māori with the justice system and the disempowerment of Māori by central Government. This combined with grievances over Māori land loss, colonial hypocrisy, loss of cultural identity, misrepresentation and economic difficulties led to many Māori marching in protest, seeking to express this politically as well as through literature, music, visual and performing arts. Theatre, it can be argued, was one of the slower bastions to open its doors – or, more truthfully to have its doors smashed down by would-be Māori theatre practitioners, wishing to tell Māori stories written by Māori with our unique voice. Out of this matrix-like maelstrom, Dansey’s play was born. There is a sincere commitment by the playwright to take the audience on a guided tour through history, as a lesson to help rectify the misrepresentation of Māori people and resistance to land loss, which is part of the play’s point. Occasionally this feels a little didactic, but it must be understood many in Māoridom in this era were knocking on locked doors, desperate to be heard, to portray and redress