He Pūranga | Past Projects
The Ragged
January 2015
SOUNDINGS THEATRE,
TE PAPA TONGAREWA
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Theatre Marae as live performance
In 2015, Te Rākau presented the premier season of Helen Pearse-Otene’s The Ragged at Soundings Theatre in Te Whanaganui-a-Tara (Wellington), New Zealand.
It’s 1840 and all the players are here,
at the bottom of the world,
at the dawn of the great new British Colony:
Port Nicholson, New Zealand, 41.2889° S, 174.7772° E
Newly arrived settlers, escaping an oppressive Victorian England, are finding the Crown’s fingers stretch all the way to this wild, distant land - and they are still stuck on the bottom rung.
Samuel Kenning has arrived “safe and well at the ends of the earth,” ready to claim his land and his better life. He quickly learns, however, that the life and land he has purchased from the New Zealand Company wasn’t theirs to give.
Resources
In 2017, The Ragged was performed in reportory at Soundings Theatre as part of The Undertow series.
You can get your own copy of The Ragged and all the plays in the Undertow, or watch the television series online, below.