About.
Auckland Theatre Company & AK03 Present the World Premiere of The Songmaker's Chair
Acclaimed Samoan-born novelist Albert Wendt's first full length play, The Songmaker's Chair, tells of a Samoan family, Aiga Sa-Peseola, who have been in Auckland since the 1950's. To survive and adapt to New Zealand, they have, over three generations, intermarried with Maori and Pakeha and have developed what they refer to as the Peseola Way.
Central to that Way is the magnificent Polynesian exploration and settlement of the Pacific, and a song-making tradition which Peseola Olaga, the patriarch of the family, has inherited from his father. At the heart of the play is the love between Peseola Olaga and Malaga, his wife, and how they have struggled to give their children a good life in Aotearoa. Theirs is the Peseola Way: defiant, honest and unflinching even in the face of death.