What I Did This Year — Part Two

There’s a lot of ground to cover in this part, so let’s leave the pictures to do the talking.

In March, The Boy was in a frightful car accident and was hospitalised for a month.

Fill* and The Boy — Auckland Hospital, March 2019. 

After three months at home and regular physiotherapy, he returned to full-time work in July. He’s a little over people telling him how lucky he was. But oi was he lucky.

My father died in May.

The Reverend Moe Silipa Mamea (retired), 1926–2019.

He was 92 and he’d had an excellent innings (he loved his cricket). His natural athleticism may have skipped me entirely and gone straight to his grandson, but I’m grateful to have his patience, perseverance, and tact.

My father had some unfinished business and I volunteered to sort it out. In June, The Lovely Wife accompanied me to Samoa.

Mount Vaea from Togafu’afu’a — June 2019

The wife loved the heat and humidity — apparently we’ll be visiting each year henceforth — and the pace of life there is glacial. Nice if you live there, a little frustrating when you’ve only a few days to get stuff done. It was a welcome interlude, considering.

Half-way through the year, my dreams began to have a recurring theme involving some massive weight slowly crushing me.

‘Twas only The Kitten missing me.

Still Life With Chickens is in its second year of touring. This year it did a couple of stops in the North Island, did a circuit of the South Island — and in August, it had its Australian premiere.

The Lovely Wife on a ferry — Sydney Harbour, August 2019.

The Lovely Wife and I attended the premiere where we had a grand yarn with Martin Edmond and Mayu Kanamori, and we explored the Emerald City by tram, bus and ferry. Still Life is off to Shanghai later this month for its Chinese premiere.

Somehow, amidst all of the above, I persisted with my masters course.

* This teddy bear joined the Mamea Aiga in Christmas 2002 when The Boy, then aged six, announced his arrival: I got a teddy bear and his name’s Phil! The Lovely Wife and I exchanged looks and asked where the name Phil came from. It says so right here, The Boy said, turning over the sewn tag: “Polyester Fill”.

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STILL LIFE WITH CHICKENS: final week in Wellington

I think I have two new favourite words: ‘sold out’.

The Wellington season, despite some early nerves, has gone very nicely with good houses and great reviews from Theatreview and The Theatre Times.

Speaking of nerves, the extended Mamea aiga attended the opening night: our Stern but Loving ParentsAwesome Sister and her girls, and Staunch Bro and his family. They said they enjoyed the show and I can’t ask for more than that. The Lovely Wife was not called on to take one for her husband so it was quite the lovefest and very validating for this writer.


I’m going to leave further Still Life updates to Facebook and Twitter. I’ve other projects that need progressing, and much as I like to shuck and jive away from work, deadlines loom.

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STILL LIFE WITH CHICKENS: final approach to Wellington premiere

It’s all “Still Life”-this and “Still Life”-that, some of you are carping. I can’t help it. It’s a big thing for me.

It’s a week out from the show’s Wellington premiere and my anxiety has increased considerably.

Why the nerves, you may ask, when 1). box office returns must be pretty good, and 2). touring is the fun part of being a playwright. Yeah. Well. I’m taking my mother to the premiere next Wednesday and I’m experiencing a very familiar feeling like I’ve done something very bad and I’m going to have to own up to it.

Mrs Mamea with one of her brood, 2012. (Photo credit: Christina Mamea.)

It’ll be fine, my siblings have been telling me, our mother’s gonna loooove it. But I recognise the tone in their voices: the kind of tone where they know I’ve done something wrong, too, and I’m going to have to take my lumps, and boy are they glad they’re not me.

I shall hold onto a couple of thoughts over the coming week: how Simon Wilson describes the play best as a hymn to [my] mother; and how The Lovely Wife will be on my arm at the premiere where, if necessary, I can use her as a shield.

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STILL LIFE WITH CHICKENS: on the Manawatū Plains

Image supplied to stuff.co.nz.

I’ve been laggardly with this blog: Still Life With Chickens has already had three performances at Centrepoint Theatre in Palmerston North.

Its Manawatū stopover has been described as “beautiful“, “poignant” and “sweet” which is pretty, uh, sweet.

The Centrepoint season runs until this Sunday 15 April, after which it continues southward — whereupon the Greater Mamea Aiga will see it.

I’m feeling a little trepidatious about that development.

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STILL LIFE WITH CHICKENS: Auckland run final days

Even though I’ve more pressing matters, I’ve been unable to stop refreshing the ticketing page for Still Life With Chickens:

Tickets as at 21 March 2018.

Between testing Fortress Mamea’s acoustics with maniacal laughs, the almost daily reports had this wee nugget:

Performance report detail — click on image for full report.

‘Nugget’! Oh, this is so much fun.

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STILL LIFE WITH CHICKENS: it begins

Image courtesy Auckland Theatre Company.

The lead up to the opening has been more public than I expected. The write-ups and mentions continued in the Herald, the Listener (hardcopy only), and Tagata Pasifika have been nice to read and watch.

On opening night I was accompanied by  The Lovely WifeThe Girl and The Boy, and I was very, very happy to have my family with me. The opening night audience liked the show — that’s always grafifying. The early reviews in BroadwayWorld and Concrete Playground are positive.

For some reason this doesn’t feel real. Maybe it’ll hit me at some point — soon, hopefully, maybe — that I’ve achieved something tangible, something to be inordinately proud of. Instead I’ve been looking over my shoulder, waiting to be awoken from some impossibly good dream.

I’m biased so I shan’t exhort you to see the show.  But I will point you in the direction of the Facebook page and Twitter feed so you can decide for yourself.

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STILL LIFE WITH CHICKENS: home stretch

The play opens this Thursday. I don’t know where the time has fled. Meantime:

I’m in Wellington for the Arts Market (and some theatre, yuss) so this week’ll fly.

(Please forgive the avian puns. I hope you understand.)

In the meantime, please can someone suggest why this pic —

Clint, a feisty Barnevelder/Orpington cross.

— keeps making me flash on this:

Batman (1989). Image copyright Warner Brothers.

Your answers and suggestions welcome in the comments.

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STILL LIFE WITH CHICKENS: rehearsal reports

Rehearsals are continuing apace in Auckland while life goes on in Northland. An unexpected perk on this production is the rehearsal reports I’m sent at the end of each work day: a one-pager of what happened, what’s needed, and any observations.

Yesterday’s report got me cackling and yahoo-ing in the Fortress Mamea environs:

Rehearsal report detail — click on image to see full report.

And it made me flash on this:

Yusss.

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STILL LIFE WITH CHICKENS: rehearsals commence

L–R: The writer, the puppeteer, the director, the designer, the actor, and the manager. (Image courtesy Auckland Theatre Company.)

Rehearsals for Still Life With Chickens kicked off this week with an Auckland Theatre Company welcome followed by a reading, then a read-through.

I got to meet and thank set, puppet and costume designer John Parker. I caught up with director Fasitua Amosa and actor Goretti Chadwick, as well as met the masterfully coiffured Chicken puppeteer Haanz Fa’avae Jackson and the very quiet, very calm technical stage manager Andrew Furness. Also well-met were those whose names are unlikely to appear in the brochure but whose work is just as vital as those on and around the stage: ElizaNatashaNicola, Emma, Jan, Jade, Nicole, Siobhan and Miryam.

I realised with a shock that opening night is only four weeks away. It feels perilously close.

Going by how I had to blink back tears through a couple of mere read-throughs, as far as I’m concerned, the show is in good hands.

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