The dramatisation of Pacific diaspora in Albert Wendt's "The songmaker's chair"

• Autores: Paloma Fresno Calleja
• Localización: Proceedings from the 31st AEDEAN Conference: [electronic resource] / María Jesús Lorenzo Modia (ed. lit.), José Miguel Alonso Giráldez (ed. lit.), Mónica Amenedo Costa (ed. lit.), María J. Cabarcos-Traseira (ed. lit.), Begoña Lasa Álvarez (ed. lit.), 2008, ISBN 978-84-9749-278-2, págs. 627-636
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • 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.