Dawnraids Play Through The Lens Of the Female Characters

“I love that this is a story that isn’t centered around the raids, but around a family who went through the raids. There’s a clear distinction” Gaby Solomona ‘Fuarosa’ in the Dawn Raids play. 

It’s no secret that we as Polynesian peoples are very Patriarchal. From how the feaus are done, to who get’s to speak at family functions, who stays home to look after the kids, who gets the titles. Even our storytelling is very male dominated.

In the past most stories, shows, films I have watched, including the one I, myself made, have all been very male dominated. So I was so excited to see that the 3 women who hold the story and family together in Dawn Raids are such integral parts of this show. Gaby Solomona (plays Fuarosa) speaks to the importance of the 3 women. Stating that while the show still has male voices, there are equally if not more important female voices that come through too.

Gaby shares “You’ve got the mum who is the glue of the family, the matriarch. Teresa the advocate fighting for our rights, and Fuarosa who represents the milk & honey dream our people believed in when they came here”

The different perspectives excite me. Not only because they are females, but also because they are so different. To be able to see the differing journeys of these 3 women at the same time, same place, same house feels like a gift. 

A gift Gaby says was fought for by Pacific Underground women Tanya and Mishelle who constantly challenged Oscar during his writing process of the women in the story.

Gaby says “The show wouldn’t be happening without the women on stage and behind the scenes” 

Our cultures may be very patriarchal but just as the women held this show together, they too held their families together when our people were under siege in the 1970’s.

When asked what they hope our people take from this show, the cast answered a resounding “To learn, and to be inspired”

I was 18 when I first learned about the dawnraids in the newly built marae at Papatoetoe High School. I remember thinking “This has got to be a sick joke''

One, because how could something so cruel have happened to our people?  And 2, how could it not be taught regularly in school?  I was shocked, sad but mostly, I was straight up pissed off. 

First staged in 1997, Oscars confronting play is just as relevant as it was on it’s first opening night. Not just a teaching opportunity for our youth but also, a safe space for our elderly to remember and to mourn.

Gaby Solomona & Lauie Tofa (who plays Mose) both share similar stories of learning about the Dawn Raids for the first time in university. Lauie recalls Dr Michelle Johansson’s lecture at Auckland University “She got a group of us to come and raid her lecture room…we were all like WHAT?”

The group were instructed to storm the class and demand to see their peers’ ID’s. Lauie describes it as confronting, and raw. This was his first encounter with this particular history of our people. 

In 2022 Troy Tu’ua (Director) reimagines Oscar’s classic with the help of some original Pacific Underground team such as Posenai Mavaega (Music director), Tanya Muagututi’a (Director), Mishelle Muagututi’a (Story Sovereignty & Wellbeing) The past and present teams working together to bring this profound piece to our stages again. 

Dawn Raids showcases the struggles of one family existing in the time of the 1970’s Dawn Raids. Highlighting the struggle of each family member, centering not just on the Raids themselves, but on the family. Tanya Muagututi‘a from Pacific Underground told the Metro Magazine “it’s about a family trying to survive during a disruptive time. They’re already trying to make ends meet and doing everything … Now they’re dealing with the Dawn Raids, and each character has a different reaction.”

Gaby Solomona says, yes, this story is about the Dawn Raids, but more importantly it’s about a family surviving them, she states “Oscar was very intentional about writing about this time in our history but from the perspective of a Samoan family. It talks about the pressure of raids and how it affected home life.”

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We caught up with a couple of the cast in this quick fire Q&A below 

What have you learned from this show?

Talia-Rae  “It’s given me another perspective, it really zooms into all the moving parts and how sometimes it (raids) were just inevitable. The oppressive power, no matter how hard we try we can’t get away from it.”

Lauie  “Learning of all the different perspectives that Oscar used to write this show. I know he spent a whole year researching before he wrote this so the fact that he’s got the overstayer, the policemen that’s torn between his people and our own people who were for the raids is really important”

What do you love most about this story?

Talia-Rae “I really love getting into the human aspect of what was happening at the time. Because what we know and what we have access to about the Dawn Raids is very curated and there's only a very limited amount of things we can see. So I really love that we get to zoom into people at the time and what their everyday life is like”.

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Dawn Raids is currently showing at the ASB Waterfront Theater until the 3rd of September 2022.

Tickets can be purchased here

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By Destiny Momoiseā

Public Interest Journalism funded by NZ on Air