Play honours Māori and Pasifika staff at iconic Kiwi crockery factory
Friday, 17 May 2024
**The Handlers written by playwright *Poata Alvie McKree highlights the experiences of Māori and Pasifika women working at Crown Lynn pottery factory.***
Crown Lynn was founded in 1948 and filled Kiwi homes with locally made home-ware including its iconic cups and saucers.
The Handlers play will be showing at Te Pou Theatre in Auckland from May 16 to June 2.
A new play showcasing the stories of Māori and Pasifika women working at Crown Lynn, the iconic Kiwi crockery factory will debut at Auckland’s Te Pou Theatre on Friday.
The Handlers is a play about three wāhine Māori working at Crown Lynn in West Auckland in the 1970s.
They risk the threat of losing their jobs after they all take time off to attend a tangihanga, forcing the production line to come to a halt.
Māori and Afro-Caribbean playwright Poata Alvie McKree wrote The Handlers - her first play - to pay tribute to the many Māori and Pasifika women who dedicated their working lives to Crown Lynn.
“I wanted to write about the kinds of compromises our whānau had to make, and the difficulties they faced working and living in a Pākehā world,” McKree (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa, St Vincent, Barbados) said.
“I was struck by the discovery that at Crown Lynn, where possible, different ethnic groups were separated into different departments.
“At the same time, it was common with Māori employees, for many members of one whānau to work at Crown Lynn - it begged the question, what would happen if there was a tangi?”
Crown Lynn was founded in 1948 and filled kiwi homes with locally made home-ware including its iconic cups and saucers.
By the 1960s, it was the largest pottery company in the Southern Hemisphere, producing 15 million pieces a year. The company shut down in 1989.
McKree said she drew on her childhood memories when writing the play, incorporating key issues during the 1970s for Māori and Pasifika including urban migration and dawn raids.
“If I was going to play off the idea of them being ‘The Handlers,’ then I wanted to explore what things they were having to handle while working in factories.
“My stepfather's Tongan and our grandparents were sent back to Tonga because they didn't have the right paperwork,” McKree told Stuff.
Seeing this memory play out on stage during rehearsal, had been emotional, she said.
“Mum and I both just kind of sat there and wept. I didn't realise how much it had impacted me until I saw it being played back.”
McKree hopes the play will remind audiences about the women in their lives who carry the whānau through tough times while still managing to “show up every day to their jobs”.
Director Amber Curreen said she was drawn to ‘The Handlers’ because she wanted to tell the stories of Māori and Pasifika working in factories in the 1970s.
“I have a visceral response to Crown Lynn crockery. It's tied up with what it is to grow up in Aotearoa,” Curreen (Ngāpuhi, Te Roroa, Te Rarawa) said.
“The cups are iconic, but also are the experiences of Māori moving to the city for work in factories like Crown Lynn.”
She said these experiences are showcased in the play which acknowledges “the impact and imprint” its Māori and Pasifika staff, particularly the women, have made on Aotearoa.
The Handlers was previously developed by Black Creatives Aotearoa, an organisation dedicated to supporting creatives of African and Afro-Caribbean heritage.
The play was further work-shopped through Te Pou Theatre’s development of Māori playwrights at the Koanga Festival in 2022.
It stars Aroha Rawson, Tuakoi Ohia, Nastassia Wolfgramm, Cian Parker, and Neil Rea.
‘The Handlers’ is a co-production between Te Pou Theatre and Te Rēhia Theatre. Its debut season will be at Te Pou Theatre in Auckland from May 16 to June 2.