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Frangipani Perfume – 3w
Mapaki – 1 (doubling) – multiple
ISBN 1 877319 07 4
Teachers’ discount $17
RRP $22.50
Frangipani Perfume
Makerita Urale
Mapaki
Dianna Fuemana
One minute we are floating in the clouds, wafted along on the scent of frangipani, the next minute we hear a toilet flushing. Languorous movement to Offenbach’s stately Barcarolle is punctured by a session of floor-mopping and the line, “I hate the smell of piss and Janola!”.
These startlingly original one act plays from two of our leading Pacific Island playwrights challenge the usual images of Pacific Islands women with energy, humour and biting satire. Enormously entertaining, they are packed with power, fun and robust, vibrant characters.
Frangipani Perfume movingly explores the painful gap between myth, memory and banal reality for PI immigrant families; and Mapaki, the abyss between fantasy and reality in a disturbing and violent relationship.
From reviews of Frangipani Perfume –
“Heaven scent – so fresh and free, so defiant of easy definition, that it can only be described in words such as pioneering and unique.”
The Listener
“Imagine Chekov’s Three Sisters bathed in the Pacific and coconut-milked for all its sensual worth and you’ve got Frangipani Perfume … a hothouse of sensuous theatrical arousal.”
Capital Times
“The palagi didn’t get all the jokes but there were so many it didn’t matter…”
The Dominion
From reviews of Mapaki –
” … a startling piece emanating strength and purity … humour and pathos filled drama, magnificently achieved …”
The Package
“… a delicately observed drama … a tale of lost dreams and broken spirit; a quietly intense work with raw sincerity.”
The Listener
“Fuemana’s play has humour and vitality … the pain and anguish are simply presented and no easy answers are provided.”
Evening Post
Makerita Urale
was born in the village of Fagamalo on the island of Savai’i in Samoa, and has worked as
a journalist and free-lance writer of children’s stories.
She has worked as producer and director of many plays, films and documentaries for many years and is currently Senior Manager Pacific Arts in Creative New Zealand.
Dianna Fuemana
was nominated Outstanding New Writer of the Year at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards 1999. Niu Sila born, her parents are from Mutalau/Niue and Pago Pago/Amerika Samoa.
She has toured Mapaki extensively in NZ and USA, and the International Women’s Conference in Athens/Greece 2000. She has since written and produced several other plays, and produced several films.