46 LISTENER SEPTEMBER 7 2019
Books & Culture
G
ET
TY(^) IM
AG
ES
T
he greatest challenge for any
actor is to assume another
identity so convincingly that
the audience can accept,
momentarily, they are some-
one else.
Give that actor an Oscar.
But one of the lead characters – The
Player, who is also an actor – in Tom
Stoppard’s absurdist comedy Rosencrantz
& Guildenstern Are Dead reckons actors are
always special anyway. “We are actors!
We’re the opposite of people.”
Rima Te Wiata, rehearsing the role
of The Player in the Auckland Theatre
Company production of the 1966 classic,
makes a case that, like any artist, actorssimply want to be taken seriously. And
when it comes to acting, she is very seri-
ous indeed.
She accepted long ago that when she
takes on a role, she becomes transformed.
“Even though I’m silly and funny, when
I get down to work I’m really intense and
really obsessive, and I like to be left alone
with it,” she says. “I’ve said to friends
before that I don’t think there’s any such
thing as being a master of the arts. There
is really only the art mastering you.”
To mark the relationship, she had the
word “mastery” tattooed in Cyrillic script
along the side of one hand. It reminds her,
she says, that “you are always humble and
you can join together with it as a force in
itself without needing anyone else to
be there”.
“I am extremely selfish when I’m
in a show,” she adds. “In any breaks,
I don’t really talk to other people. I
don’t want a lot of contact. It’s not
just, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to learn this.’
You’ve got to get into the forest of it
and see all the clearings. When you
stop, it’s like, ‘I haven’t had a drink
of water for three hours,’ so you
have gone somewhere else.”A
uckland-based Te Wiata, 56,
has been on stage for nearly 40
years, making her professionaldebut at 17 in the 1980 Mercury Theatre
production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
That Te Wiata is one of our most formi-
dable contemporary stage performers was
proven again in last year’s season of Hir at
the Silo Theatre in Auckland. In New York
playwright Taylor Mac’s drama of a broken
home, Te Wiata’s matriarch, Mommy
Paige, rode a line between dangerous nasti-
ness and deep empathy in a powerhouse
performance that left the audience gasping.
In recent years, her screen career has
largely been a run of occasionally scene-stealing maternal figures – in TV3 sitcom
Golden Boy as well as the movies House-
bound, The Breaker Upperers and Hunt for
the Wilderpeople. Her turn as foster mum
Bella in Taika Waititi’s hit film gave her
a rare chance, with her improvised Ricky
Baker Birthday Song, to display her musical
talents, which, in 1993, had led to a one-
off jazz album.
That record was the result of her profile
from appearances in 1980s and 1990s
sketch shows and memorable impersona-
tions of Judy Bailey and Helen Clark, a
period Te Wiata revisited on recent
comedy documentary series Funny As.
She will bring her comedy talents toNot merely a player
She may be known for her comedic screen turns, but when it
comes to acting, Rima Te Wiata, who is returning to the stage
in a new production of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead,
takes her craft very seriously. by LINDA HERRICK
“Even though I’m silly and
funny, when I get downto work I’m really intense
and really obsessive.”POETRY • BOOKS • MUSIC • FILM
Right, Rima Te Wiata: has given her life
to the actor’s craft. Left, her parents, Inia
and Beryl Te Wiata, in London in the 60s.