Playwright Vela Manusaute at the rehearsal for Sons of Vao, which he wrote and co-directs with his partner Anapela Polata’ivao. (Photo: Francesca Brugnoli)
Vela Manusaute’s new play, Sons of Vao*, which opens in Tāmaki Makaurau this month, explores the impact of a father’s violence on his sons. It’s inspired by Vela’s own story.*
He took time out from rehearsals at Auckland Theatre Company’s Mt Eden base to kōrero with Atakohu Middleton.
Beer. Methylated spirits. Anything with alcohol. Vela Manusaute’s father, Saute, drank them all. And when Saute had a skinful, his rage erupted, incandescent and unstoppable. The target was often his eldest son, Vela.
Vela, 55, uses words like “rough” and “terrible” to describe the violence of his childhood. Back then, he didn’t understand why his charismatic, handsome, rugby-playing dad was so angry, and he still doesn’t.
“People would tell me my father was funny,” he says. “I didn’t see any funniness growing up, you know.”
Inevitably, Vela started using his fists on others. “That’s all we knew.”
As an adult, he limited contact with his dad, and the anger and bewilderment festered. When Saute collapsed and died more than 20 years ago, Vela was unmoved. “I had no feelings. I literally had no tears for him.”
Over the years, as he and his partner Anapela Polata’ivao (best known for her starring role in Tinā) built their careers as actors, writers, and comedians, she often urged him to forgive his father and let go of those emotions.
It took years for that moment to arrive. Release finally came during the first Covid lockdown in 2020, when everyone retreated into their homes, fearful of the new virus spreading across the globe. At home in Manurewa, Vela sat down with his laptop and did what he calls “a spew write”.
We’re sitting at a table at the Auckland Theatre Company’s base at the Mt Eden War Memorial Hall on Dominion Road. He thumps the table’s edge with his fingertips to demonstrate his frenzied typing and equally feverish thoughts: “I have to heal myself. I have to face it. I’m writing from my heart. And oh my gosh, the tears are coming. I’m dealing with my pain through my fingers. I’ve gotta push through it.”
Vela later wondered if he was revealing too much by basing a play on the violence he’d experienced. But then he decided, no. Theatre is his most expressive voice. Always has been. Drama, he adds, gives us a way to broach tough subjects like violence. To “face it in the creative spaces”.
Sons of Vao won the 2021 Adam award for the best play by a Pasifika writer. On Thursday, June 18, the play opens at the ASB Waterfront Theatre in Auckland.
Beulah Koale plays the father, Vao, and his sons are played by Haanz Fa’avae-Jackson (Red, White and Brass), Epine Bob Savea (Hibiscus & Ruthless, Fantail) and Brett Taefu (Freedom Fighter). Vela is co-directing the play with Anapela.
Sons of Vao cast, from left: Hans Fa’avae-Jackson, Epine Bob Savea, Brett Taefu, and Beulah Koale, who plays the dad, Vao. (Photo supplied)
The play, billed as raw and emotional, follows Vao and his three sons as they move from village life in Niue to the suburbs of Ponsonby, Auckland. The sons, Seki, To, and Sau, revere their funny and handsome dad, but when his fury explodes, he is terrifying. Much of the story is told through the boys’ eyes as they become adults, each marked in different ways by their father.
The play isn’t as grim as it may sound — it’s leavened with humour. I sit in on day six of rehearsals, where the boys are having the same teenage experiences Vela had in the 1980s. Playing spacies at the dairy. Nicking milk money from the neighbours’ letterboxes to buy fish and chips. Realising, with horror, that the panting in the dead of night is your parents doing it.
The language is full of rhythm and movement, and some of it comes directly from Vela’s dad: “I fight to you, you fight to me. We fight!”
In rehearsal, Vela has sometimes found the collision of his memories and what’s in front of him a strange but not unwelcome experience. Beulah, he says, is a “champion” and captures Vao’s simmering rage.
“In a good way, it scares me,” he says. “When I sit there and look at the energy, feel the words, oh my gosh, all the memories come flooding back.”
Beulah Koale in rehearsal for Sons of Vao at Auckland Theatre Company’s Mt Eden base. (Photo: Francesca Brugnoli)
*
Saute’s own father was Sāmoan, and his mother was Niuean. Vela’s mum Etenā is Niuean. Vela was born in her village of Mutalau, Vaomotu, and he’s the eldest of six. In 1979, when Vela was nine, the family moved to Auckland.
Vela spent his high school years at Selwyn College in Kohimarama, where, he says, “the only thing I passed was a rugby ball”. Often disruptive, he was asked to leave, but the school’s legendary drama teacher, June Renwick, talked the principal into letting him stay.
Vela is grateful “Bless her for seeing something in me and telling the principal: ‘Let this guy come back, and you’ll see something.’”
June, 88, is still teaching drama. She told me that Vela “was the sort of student that you want everyone to be, because he loved being creative. He was determined to make things work. He was always helpful. He was a team player.”
June will be in the audience on the opening night of Sons of Vao and feels “a great sense of joy” at seeing how far her former pupil has come in theatre. “It’s not an easy road.”
It took several attempts before Vela got into Toi Whakaari, the New Zealand Drama School in Wellington, and there, he says, he was forced to start looking at who he was and what drove him.
One exercise in particular was pivotal. “I had to give eight hugs a day. It wasn’t just a little hug — I had to count to 10.”
For a young man who didn’t do hugs and certainly didn’t talk about his emotions, this was hugely confronting. After one hug reduced him to tears, Vela was sent to sit in front of a mirror and reflect. Daily. “Every day you go look in the mirror, 20 minutes, and I’m thinking, what’s going on?”
Drama school “broke” him for the better, Vela says. “Drama has taught me how to share my feelings and never be afraid of feeling.”
Vela was the first Niuean to graduate from Toi Whakaari, in 1995. That same year, through the Pacific drama scene, he met Anapela, who’d been acting since she was eight years old. They’ve been together for more than 30 years.
“I’m grateful that I found Anapela. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be where I am today as a man,” says Vela. “I was able to talk about my feelings to her.”
Vela and Anapela at rehearsals for Auckland Theatre Company’s production of Sons of Vao, opening on June 18. (Photo: Francesca Brugnoli)
Facing limited roles for Pasifika actors after graduation, the couple and their acting mates decided to make their own work. In 2002, they founded Kila Kokonut Krew, a theatre, comedy and music group. In its 13 years, the Krew blazed a trail for Pacific actors, musicians and comedians.
Possibly the Krew’s best-known production is the musical The Factory, a lively tribute to the Pacific Islanders who worked on Aotearoa’s factory floors in the 1970s. It was partly inspired by Saute, who worked as a machine operator in a bed factory.
The Factory was a stunning success. It began as a community production, went on to headline the 2013 Auckland Arts Festival, and then travelled to the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show spawned a 20-episode web series of the same name.
In that time, Vela and Anapela had three children, now young adults — daughter Iuni, and sons Rocky and Hector Jack. Both sons are working behind the scenes on Sons of Vao.
Vela isn’t a drinker. He learned many years ago that booze brought out the monster in him, and he was determined that he wouldn’t be violent with his kids. “I wanted to break the cycle.”
Still, Vela remembers that when Rocky arrived 24 years ago, he became fearful for a while, worried that he might turn into his father and beat up his son. He didn’t want Rocky to be around his grandfather, either. “I didn’t want my father to be close to my son. That’s how ragey I was with him.”
The rage has passed. With time, Vela has gained perspective and written his way to peace: “I let go.” And while he’ll never know what drove his father’s violence, whether it was alcohol alone or alcohol masking something else, he has found compassion for him.
“The core element of this play, for me, is wanting to give something back to my father.” For Vela, this has been a source of great joy.
Sons of Vao is an act of forgiveness delivered in the language Vela knows best.
“Dad made me, but drama saved me.”
“The core element of this play, for me, is wanting to give something back to my father.” — Vela Manusaute. (Photo: Francesca Brugnoli)
Sons of Vao by Vela Manusaute runs from June 18 to July 5 at the ASB Waterfront Theatre, Auckland. Tickets are available here.
Vela and his path to forgiveness are explored in the series Descendants of Niue: Tau Hologa Niue*, and his story is available on* Tagata Pasifika + from June 17. You can watch the series trailer here.
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