Nī Dekkers-Reihana with Te Ramaroa atop Maungawhau (Mt Eden, Auckland), where the Aotearoa adaptation of the play Constellations is set. (Photo: Jinki Cambronero)
Nī Dekkers-Reihana, a 33-year-old actor and director, has reimagined the celebrated British play Constellations for Aotearoa, setting it among the stars of Matariki. Atakohu Middleton reports.
It’s dawn on top of a chilly Maungawhau (Mt Eden, in Auckland). Maarire, an astrophysicist, and Rowley, a beekeeper, meet for the first time at a Matariki gathering.
In one universe, they fall instantly in love. In a parallel universe, they don’t, and their lives unfold in different ways.
This leads us to the intriguing premise of Silo’s Matariki production Constellations. What if every decision you’ve ever made (or failed to make) about a relationship plays out in a vast ensemble of parallel universes?
Constellations, by British playwright Nick Payne, premiered in London in 2012. It’s since been performed all over the English-speaking world, and translated for audiences in Germany, China, Ukraine and Indonesia.
However, this version of Constellations, playing at Q Theatre in Auckland until July 19, is believed to be the first adaptation through an Indigenous lens.
Reworking the romantic, thought-provoking play for Aotearoa has been the work of Nī Dekkers-Reihana, a 33-year-old actor and director of Dutch, Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa and Ngāti Porou whakapapa. Constellations is Nī’s first mainstage directing project in Tāmaki Makaurau.
Nī (they/them) first saw Constellations at Wellington’s Circa Theatre in 2014 and loved the concept. “It was really exciting to me, and I thought: ‘Oh, I’d love to get my hands on this.’”
That opportunity came after Sophie Henderson, Silo Theatre’s artistic director, read the script and decided she wanted to produce an Aotearoa version. She sent a handwritten letter to the playwright, and he gave his blessing.
“It’s such a simple theatrical idea,” Sophie says. “Two people meet, and we see the many different lives they might have together, but it opens up huge questions about love, time, grief, chance and the universe.”
Sophie Henderson, Silo Theatre artistic director, wanted the adaptation of Constellations to be reimagined through a Māori worldview. (Photo supplied)
Sophie asked Nī to pitch after their name came up as a possible director, and through that process, “it became very clear that they weren’t only the right person to direct it, they were the right person to adapt it, too”.
“Nī has a really rare combination of qualities,” says Sophie. “They are intellectually rigorous, deeply feeling, wildly theatrical, and very funny.” Throughout the work of adapting the play, “Nī brought such care, curiosity and imagination to that process.”
Sophie felt that the adaptation needed to do more than simply move to Aotearoa: it needed to be reimagined through a Māori worldview. That meant using some Māori language in the script, too.
Nī is on their reo journey — “I can understand quite a lot, but I’m not a very confident speaker” — and initially felt intimidated about weaving te reo into the script.
But Nī decided to tūwhiti i te hopo, to feel the fear and do it anyway. “I really wanted to try to write as much of it myself as I could.” Three reo advisers were on hand to provide support, including Ni’s eldest brother, Loi. The others were Nīkau Balme, a kura kaupapa graduate and the son of theatre lights Katie Wolfe and Tim Balme, and Mia Handley, a reo adviser for Shortland Street.
“It was a really interesting challenge for me.”
Renaye Tamati and Jarod Rawiri, who play Maarire and Rowley in Constellations, with director Nī Dekkers-Reihana (far right) on Maungawhau, where the play is set. (Photo: Jinki Cambronero)
Nī, who now lives in Auckland, was born in Whāingaroa (Raglan). Mum Caroline is an artist who often roped her four kids into her photography or video projects. “We were all quite involved in a lot of her mahi growing up, and she encouraged us creatively,” says Nī.
The family moved to Wellington so Caroline could study film, and it was there that Nī’s older brother Joe began studying drama. Something clicked the day teenage Nī saw Joe in a production of Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s gory revenge tragedy, playing the embittered Roman general Titus.
“He was really good. He was in this room full of hundreds of students, and they were completely silent and completely engaged with him.”
Nī soon joined Joe in the scene theatre in Wellington: “We just both kept doing it. And we both kept getting really positive feedback.”
An early influence on Nī was playwright Micky Delahunty, who focuses on work for rangatahi. Nī learned much of their craft at Delahunty’s 1st Gear Productions, eventually teaching some of its children’s classes and writing and directing for the company.
Another important influence was Jane Waddell, a former director of Circa Theatre, who gave Nī their first role the year after they left school. Numerous Circa productions followed, and Nī now has a solid CV in film, theatre and television.
I first saw Nī perform in Auckland Theatre Company’s Tiri: Te Araroa Woman Far Walking late last year. In this Katie Wolfe update of the original Witi Ihimaera script, Miriama McDowell played the matriarch Tiri, born on the day Te Tiriti o Waitangi was first signed, while Nī played her younger self. The two of them were stunning, and they’ll take the play to the Brisbane Festival in September.
Like Matariki, Nī’s star is shining brightly this season. You can see Nī now as the lead character in Three’s six-part drama Head Girl, which launched online in late June. It’s a chaotic, mind-bending tale inspired by the poetry of Freya Daly Sadgrove, and Nī is explosive as a troubled young woman who drops out of university to become a poet.
I spoke with Nī just as the Constellations season was starting, but they were already working on their next project — a residency at Te Pou, a kaupapa Māori theatre in west Auckland, to develop a new show “inspired by events and experiences in my own life”.
The many stories of Maarire (Renaye Tamati) and Rowley (Jarod Rawiri) unfurl beneath the stars of Matariki. (Photo Andi Crown)
In Nī’s hands, the god of wind, Tāwhirimātea, plays a central role in the Matariki story that Constellations became. In Māori lore, the primal parents, Ranginui, the sky father, and Papatūānuku, the earth mother, are forcibly separated by their son Tāne, so that he and his siblings can escape to te ao mārama, the world of light.
But Tāwhirimātea, who wants to stay with his parents, is enraged by the separation, and during the fight with his brothers, he rips out his own eyes, crushes them and flings them to the sky, where they stick to his father’s chest.
When we gaze at the skies this week, we’re seeing ngā mata o te ariki Tāwhirimātea — the eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea — or Matariki.
Nī sees Constellations as a form of theatrical catharsis that aligns with the themes of Matariki. As Maarire and Rowley live out their relationship in parallel universes, exploring the pleasure and pain of romantic love, there is much coming together and letting go, mirroring how Matariki brings us together to mourn those we’ve lost over the past year, reflect on the here and now, and plan for the future.
“I wanted to create a space where we could do that together and encourage us to be together in our grief,” says Nī. “I think we’re also grieving the state of the world at the moment as well.”
This Matariki is especially poignant for Nī, who is sending two loved ones to the stars — their grandmother or Oma, Toos Dekkers, who died in September, and a close friend, Jen Lal, who died in December.
Oma was a constant presence in Nī’s childhood, while Jen was a “huge tuākana”, or elder sibling. “Jen really took me under her wing when I was a teenager and taught me a lot about life, and about theatre in general.”
Renaye Tamati and Jarod Rawiri bring a palpable chemistry and volatility to a relationship that constantly forms and reforms before the audience. (Photo: Andi Crown)
I saw Constellations on opening night, when it received a standing ovation. Between the intelligent script and the palpable chemistry between Jarod Rawiri and Renaye Tamati, who play Rowley and Maarire, I was wholly invested in the messiness and tenderness of their story.
In publicity for the show, Nī said they hoped people would “leave the theatre not analysing it but feeling it —wanting to turn to someone and say, ‘I love you.’ Or ‘I’m sorry.’ Or ‘I should have said something differently.'”
Nī has certainly succeeded in that.
Constellations, a Silo Theatre production, plays at Q Theatre, Auckland, until Sunday, July 19. Tickets are available here.
Dr Atakohu Middleton (Waikato, Pākehā) isE-Tangata’sarts editor. She is a journalist whose lengthy career has included outlets as diverse asRadio Waatea*, theGuardian(UK),*theNew Zealand Listener, theSunday Star-Times, and theNew Zealand Herald. She lives in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her bookKia Hiwa Rā!, on Māori journalism in Aotearoa, was published in 2024.
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