The Dramatisation of Pacific Diaspora in Albert Wendt’s The Songmaker’s Chair

Abstract

[Abstract] My paper looks at Albert Wendt’s play The Songmaker’s Chair (2004) as an example of the collective dramatisation of the experience of diaspora carried out by Pacific playwrights in New Zealand. Wendt’s play conforms to a conventional five-act structure but contains fragments of Samoan Fale aitu -a comic form employed as a weapon of social comment- as well as performative elements borrowed from stand-up comedy and hip hop. By combining western and Samoan dramatic forms, Wendt calls attention to the hybrid quality of Pacific identity in diaspora as well as to the range of multicultural elements available in contemporary New Zealand society.