Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin
Two Guitars in the Circa One Stage, directed by Carrie Green, written by Jamie McCaskill, and produced by Sonia Hardie, is about two Māori musicians (McCaskill as Te Pou and Cameron Clayton as Billy) who have won the Tūturu music competition and are facing the biggest performance of their lives. But are they both on the same page? Filled with humour and music that keep the important and meaningful conversation light, this show should not be missed.
Two Guitars is more or less confined entirely within one back-stage room at a large venue where our characters are soon to perform. The set (Ian Harman) and lighting design (Talya Pilcher, tech by Hāmi Hawkins) are complementary elements that make the show look and feel like a very nice room, at a very large and respectable event. Slick dark tables and chairs, patterns on the walls, a gift basket with free food and drinks. Because of the themes of the piece, and a distrusting perspective of silver-tongued execs taking advantage of earnest Māori performers, the design does more than you ever notice it doing. It provides a sinister corporate-cleanliness to the ao Māori elements in the room, presenting patterns throughout the space, but in a polite and stylish fashion which appear pleasant at first but are subverted when the characters fully express their feelings about their surroundings.
For me, this show is a powerful character drama and, luckily, because it’s Māori it’s also really funny and there are awesome songs. I felt really proud to be Māori watching this show, and I also felt incredibly challenged at points. The show asks its audience to think harder about what we want and what others are trying to tell you about what you want.
McCaskill’s Te Pou is a more mainstream Māori persona than Clayton’s Billy. Speaking reo, being charismatic, singing and joking, whereas Billy whakapapa’s Māori yet is the more Pākehā-presenting of the two. Billy does not possess the level of reo Māori Te Pou does, not nearly, but both whakapapa Māori so that doesn’t matter. Or does it?
I enjoy the theme about being ‘different types of Māori’ and how, in order to perform socially and professionally, there is a pressure to homogenise and be a certain kind of Māori which is more palatable or respectable, instead of being your true authentic self, which also happens to be Māori. Te Pou’s character is staunch to the idea that it’s hypocritical of large-scale benefactors and showrunners to want to create a te ao Māori space to celebrate Māoriness but insist on homogenising the Māori within it and therefore making their own celebration disingenuous. Billy’s opinion is that any te ao Māori space is more personally rewarding than the Pākehā space he came from: an office job. It begs the question: is it better to have something that’s not nearly perfect, or nothing at all?
Billy has had much less of a relationship with te ao Māori than Te Pou has and is much more desperate for it because of this. I understand this completely, it felt like something was missing before I reconnected with te ao Māori. It is also easy to understand Te Pou’s lack of trust in institutions and companies since it captures, on the macro, the political treatment of Māori in Aotearoa. Larger systems constantly changing without warning, goalposts being moved, bureaucracy in the name of making things fair but having the bureaucracy rigged with words, terms, and jargon to make it inaccessible. The show captures the feeling that even though it’s a Māori space, with Māori performers and producers (the producer character, performed by Regan Taylor, also whakapapa’s Māori) it is still very much a Pākehā system that they all inhabit, and is, therefore, still not quite right. It captures this feeling with a lightness that only adepts could.
Both characters have earnest and understandable perspectives but where McCaskill’s writing comes to life is in both character's personal narrative. The audience sees the parts of each Billy and Te Pou that complicate our feelings for them. We see each of their personal kaupapa, and the merit within each one, and throughout the show are shown the deep flaws within each character's priorities. McCaskill has crafted a powerful, entertaining story which constantly evolves. Without the lightness with which the cast and music bring to this piece it would not succeed in engaging so deeply in the themes it presents.
The music in the piece is catchy, energising and demonstrates a deep joy that connects the two characters. Some are covers (the show opens with a cover of Muroki’s 'Rehurehu'), some are original songs ('Small Town Life' by Clayton, 'It’s Up To You' and 'Secret Room' by McCaskill, and 'Ngaru Hau' by Seth Haapu). McCaskill and Clayton are both adept guitar players and singers and in their playing together quickly show why these two characters are together when all evidence points to the obvious conclusion of their separation. After leaving the theatre, I have constantly caught myself thinking back upon the music of the show and its uncompromising joy alongside Two Guitar’s more dramatic moments. There is something to be said here about the simplicity of expressing radical indigenous joy on an interpersonal level in the foreground of our nation's complicated history…
I think this piece of work is necessary viewing for Aotearoa New Zealand audiences and I would not hesitate to tell anyone to go and see it. You have between now and the 13th April. Run, don't walk! More info here!