A celebration of so much more than Nepia's skill on the rugby field.
Jarod Rawiri and George Nepia
At the risk of offending my fellow Kiwis, I have to admit I am no fan of rugby. All the more surprising, then, that I came away from Hone Kouka’s delightful dramatisation of the life of rugby legend George Nepia in a state of somewhat incredulous enchantment. Nepia may have been, as the pundits decided at the time of the 1924 All Blacks tour of Britain and France, the greatest fullback of all time, but Kouka’s play celebrates so much more than his skill on the field. What it honours above all is a man with both strength of character and genuine humility, a combination that in Jarod Rawiri’s pitch-perfect performance makes for moments of true grace.
I, George Nepia is simply staged against a canvas backdrop on which illuminations charting Nepia’s voyage from rural Hawke’s Bay to London, Dublin, Swansea and Paris are displayed. The technical skills of Robert Larsen (production design), Thomas Hanover (projected still illustration) and Ulli Briese (technical operation) are evident from the start. As the play moves from one period of Nepia’s life to another – the 19-year-old All Black is seen through the eyes of Nepia as an old man – the images appearing on the canvas become both a prop for the actor and a visual aid for the audience.
But it is in Kouka’s words, and Rawiri’s deft interpretation of them, that the magic of this play lies. Neither writer nor actor is afraid to show Nepia’s essential innocence, and his grounded belief in the goodness of life and of his fellow man.
There are many laughs, some at Nepia’s expense, but there are also moments of restrained anger (he is left out of the 1928 tour of South Africa because of his skin colour), and a hint of tragedy in the not entirely successful subplot involving Nepia’s relationship with his “lost” son.
“Excellence is expected,” Nepia declares at one point, and excellence is what we get in this superb production directed by Jason Te Kare. What it lacks in tension it more than makes up for in charm and humour. Watching Rawiri mime the various moves that made Nepia famous, I couldn’t help fantasising about a game far removed from the mud, blood and misplaced fists that characterise rugby today: a game in which skill, speed and strength of character combine to create the kind of grace Rawiri displayed on stage, and Nepia, by all accounts, possessed in life.
I, GEORGE NEPIA, by Hone Kouka, directed by Jason Te Kare, Circa Two, Wellington, September 7-16; then Q Theatre, Auckland, September 20-24.