Kikia Te Poa at Bats Theatre

FORGET THE ALL BLACKS VS THE LIONS!
COME AND SEE NEW ZEALAND’S FIRST RUGBY GAME AGAINST THE SPRINGBOKS!

KIKIA TE POA
(Kick the Boer)

BATS THEATRE JULY 20 – 30.

With rugby fever once again hitting New Zealand, what better time to stage Kikia Te Poa, a play of rugby and identity, set during the Boer War? This funny and moving play portrays the relationship of John, a Maori/Irish New Zealand soldier, and his Afrikaner prisoner Johann, and is set on both a battlefield and a rugby field, as the New Zealanders challenge their prisoners of war to their favourite game.

JOHN: You know, the English invented rugby.

JOHANN: God invented rugby.

John laughs.

Kikia Te Poa (translating as ‘Kick the Boer’) takes its name from the haka written for the South African War by John Walter Callaway.

Playwright Matthew Saville says, “Being half South African and half Kiwi I wanted to write a piece that reflects the relationship between my two countries. The South African War or Boer War was New Zealand’s first war outside the lands wars. In Kikia Te Poa, this small piece of history becomes a metaphor for New Zealand history and the development of our own identity."

He says that every culture is always judged by its worst example: “Nice honest people don’t make the news very often. Kikia Te Poa tries to dispel the myth that Afrikaners have nothing more to offer the world then apartheid and hate. In doing so it challenges preconceptions that people have about any race and colour."

Cast:
John – Jamie McGaskill (When Sun and Moon Collide)
Johann – Nathan Meister (Gross Indecencies)
Charlie – Matt Chamberlain (King Kong, In My Father’s Den)
Maddocks – Gavin Rutherford (The Cherry Orchard)

Director:
Larry Rew: (Young & Hungry)

Writer: Matthew Saville (The Boxer, Insider’s Guide to Love)

Producer: Mary Parker
Lighting design: Rob Larsen
Sound design: Stephen Gallagher (Albert Speer)

ENDS

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