[Dream Sleep]
Moe Miti, offered by Red Leap Theatre, fantastically conjures a liminal area – not fairly actual, not fairly unreal – and explores inside it the complicated relationship one has to at least one’s previous and identification. It manages to inform a nuanced and distinctive story about intergenerational trauma with little or no narrative. It is directly particular and common. Director Katrina George has crafted a piece that’s deeply Sāmoan, however nonetheless tangibly relatable to a Pākehā like myself.
Horror is cleverly used all through Moe Miti, making visceral and palpable the sentiments of trauma and rage earlier than the rational thoughts has time to decipher that that is what the present is about. Jane Hakaraia’s lighting works harmoniously with Owen McCarthy’s unimaginable spatial and AV design to create the dreamlike area evoked by the title; ‘Moe Miti’ which suggests ‘dream sleep’ (from what I can collect). Perhaps a sleep that’s disturbed by goals – a spot the place ghosts of the previous disguise in shadows, the place time itself has no that means.
Large sheets of one thing resembling tin foil make up the backdrop and wings in Q Theatre’s Loft. The lights bounce off them, making a startling shimmering impact, just like the solar on the ocean. A tube feeds right into a white, plastic rectangular on the ground, slowly filling it till it seems to be like a cloud. Soon, this may develop into the womb and umbilical wire from which our protagonist will probably be ripped. Pepe (Malama Tila) emerges in darkness. She is all the time looking for connection – for some ‘other’ by which to see herself, however notably for the comforting embrace of her mom. But the umbilical wire, as soon as severed, can’t be put again; it snakes away from her into the darkness. Right from the beginning, there’s a sense of traumatic disconnection.
Soon we’re launched to her mom, Valu (performed with vigour and depth by Katerina Fatupaito), in a (refreshingly welcome) comedic sequence. Although she is steeped in Sāmoan tradition and modes of behaviour, she is a deeply recognisable determine: the mom not but able to let go of her youth, whose daughter is simply a reminder of her age. Or maybe it’s Pepe’s lack of knowledge that irks Valu a lot – her connection to the fashionable, the western. Valu’s personal connection to the ancestor, Aiga (Ma’aola Faasavala), is sacred and but stuffed with darkness, trapping her in modes of toxicity and anger. Aiga herself is an elusive determine, the customarily evil-seeming spectre that haunts the piece, however who, god-like, appears to defy definition.
The three female figures symbolize the previous, the current and the longer term. The previous looms giant over the dream-space but is never straight accessible. Pepe, particularly, is lower off from the previous (Aiga) for a lot of the piece. Valu, as the current, should bear the burden of carrying the previous. Aiga is uncooked with a sort of demonic rage, maybe with the trauma of colonialism. It is thru Valu that this rage manifests till it turns into a cycle that threatens to entice Pepe too. The three performers are electrical collectively, their physicality sturdy and fluid. They handle to carry a lightness, at the same time as they discover the depths of anger, darkness, and despair.
The reflective sheets, evocative of the ocean, are excellent for a bit about island tradition. But, like nearly every thing else on this present, their symbolic that means is slippery, ghostlike – containing multitudes. Sometimes it’s the solar on the ocean, typically the moon. Sometimes it’s the darkness of disconnection, aloneness – reflecting solely your individual picture again. Sometimes it displays the previous, the faces of your ancestors. Sometimes it inexplicably reveals a performer behind it, changing into a window into the realm of spirits and goals.
At the centre of the backdrop is a tall, clear field which strikes ahead on a rig nearly to the entrance of the stage. This piece of staging is so easy however so efficient. It creates the realm of the previous – seen, shut sufficient to the touch, and but clearly delineated, not fairly accessible. Purple laser beams refract via it like the sunshine of stars – historic, but persisting into the now. It is the area of the ancestor, Aiga. And, identical to her, it’s typically a pressure of darkness, a spot the place Valu and Pepe finally develop into trapped, held inside patterns of concern and rage. Moe Miti explores a posh relationship to the previous, the best way it will probably each nourish and bind, and the field is the bodily manifestation of this.
Eventually, the three figures are capable of escape of the field, led by Pepe. This ending is tentatively hopeful – the sudden wash of sunshine is stark, nearly exposing, after being so lengthy in the dead of night. But because the three start to sing collectively, there’s a sense, lastly, of affection and connection.
There is a lot that means to be mined from this wealthy and evocative piece. It is an attractive weaving collectively of tales, symbols and modes that will probably be notably resonant with Pasifika viewers members however is universally accessible. It deftly integrates its progressive tech and design components with physicality and textual content. It is primal and emotive and magnetic – a blinding, electrifying piece that I definitely hope has a vibrant future forward.
Moe Miti performs Q Theatre Loft Twenty second-Twenty seventh August 2023
