MAORIDOM AND THEATRE by ERLE NELSON Mr Nelson is a well-known New Zealand playwright, at present employed in the Housing Section of the Department of Maori Affairs, Wanganui. Some years ago one saw plays in our theatres which were only British, with occasional plays from the Continent. The New Zealand play was almost unheard of. Today our theatre is undergoing a change—the New Zealand play is no longer a seven day wonder. This is indeed pleasing, but so far our New Zealand drama is pakeha, and the Maori is much of a stranger to our stages. Bruce Mason's play “The Pohutukawa Tree” is a step in the right direction; it has brought Maori actors on to a theatre stage besides being successfully televised in England. There is the well-known one-act play “The Greenstone Mere” and, I believe, other Maori plays which have been seen occasionally. All this is to the good. It is fair, however, to ask: is this the beginning of a Maori drama? Will a Maori drama come into being as a matter of course? I don't think anybody can predict what will happen in theatre with very great accuracy. Whether we in New Zealand will create a drama which belongs truly to our Maori people is still no more than an opinion. I believe theatre will welcome well written and well produced Maori plays. But Maori plays have to be written and Maori actors have to be found, trained and organised. There needs to be more than occasional Maori plays. We need Maori drama groups; we need these Maori drama groups to bring Maori plays into theatre—not one or two plays, but as many Maori plays as can be written and performed. We need Maori theatre. In Wanganui an attempt is being made to establish a Maori drama group. Actors chosen from members of the Putiki Maori Club will be acting in a Maori play which is to appear in the British Drama League festival in Wanganui during next July. These actors will be under the wing of the R.S.A. Little Theatre Society which has done excellent work in encouraging New Zealand plays. The idea of working through an established society is to give the actors the full benefit of that society's advice and resources. This should give the actors some valuable help, particularly as they will be competing against pakeha actors who have had a long theatre experience. I am confident that the Maori actors will give an excellent account of themselves. What our theatre needs most is a breath of fresh air—plays which have been taken out of drawing rooms and set against a New Zealand background. Maori plays and actors can do this. Not only will the setting of the play be fresh and unusual, but I am sure that the fine dramatic character of the actors themselves will bring to the stage a living quality we see all too rarely. That is one reason for my wanting to see a Maori drama established. I believe very sincerely that the future of a New Zealand drama which can stand up and live and breathe on a stage will depend on how far we bring our Maori people into it. Theatre stages many fine plays, the kind of plays that makes one feel proud to be a part of theatre. But too often we see plays which are shallow and empty, plays which have nothing worthwhile to say. It seems at times that theatre becomes sickly and weary like a very old man who is too tired to bother any more while life itself, full of tears and laughter, is a rushing stream that bustles around the very theatre in which we sit bored and fed up with ourselves. And the tragedy of this is that theatre people are some of the kindliest people I know, and their producers, actors and technicians are hard working and conscientious. Why, then, should this be? I think theatre sometimes forgets that it is, or ought to be, a part of the community. We see so many plays about people and places we don't really know that we get out of touch with life