Dramatic final-act twist sees state house saved from wrecking ball
The bulldozers were on the doorstep when a brainwave helped halt the demolition of a piece of Kiwi movie history. Josephine Franks reports.
The demolition crew was outside 3 Roseman Ave when John Leach realised what he needed to do to save the old state house.
He was on the phone to Ka¯ inga Ora immediately: ‘‘I had to say to them – I’ve had the idea, it’s actually really good and you’ll have to take away the bulldozers.’’
Like so many others in the Auckland neighbourhood, the Mt Roskill state house was slated for demolition.
From his house down the road, Leach had watched as families were shifted out of the area, their homes razed to the ground. Number three was like every other house, but it was special. It was the location for Toa Fraser’s award-winning film No2 ;itwasa piece of Roskill history.
The idea that came to him ‘‘fully formed’’ that night was to turn the backyard of the house into a theatre. It would be a way of saying goodbye to a neighbourhood overtaken by redevelopment, an opportunity for local emerging artists to produce a show, a way to share the community’s stories.
But first he needed to stop the whole thing being demolished.
The road that curves around the base of Puketa¯ papa straddles what Roskill used to be and what it is becoming. Workers in highvis jackets direct traffic with stopgo signs; it’s a neighbourhood marshalled by the work of Piritahi, the organisation responsible for clearing land so Ka¯inga Ora can build on it.
Plots of earth ready for construction butt up against fencedoff new builds. The judder of jackhammers creates a background thrum;
Leach has seen neighbours in tears because of the relentless noise.
And sitting squat at the foot of the maunga are numbers three and five Roseman Ave, two of the last weatherboard relics of what Roskill used to be.
The newly formed No 3. Roskill Theatre company is clustered in the backyard of number five. The flowers are in bloom, the lawn mown – if it wasn’t for the glass crunching underfoot inside, the holes punched in plasterboard and the heat pump hanging off the wall, it would be easy to imagine a family still living here.
The dozen or so rangatahi are all Mt Roskill locals. The show they develop between now and March will be Love to Say
Goodbye, a collection of individual vignettes and a group theatre piece performed as part of the Auckland Arts Festival.
The redevelopment of Roskill and the displacement of its community is personal for them.
Ionatana Cowley-lupo – or Jonjon, as he’s better known – has lived in the area for more than 20 years. When his family was shifted out of their home, his mum begged to stay in Mt Roskill. For him, the project is a way of honouring the stories of families like his.
‘‘The literal houses are being ripped out – the foundations, everything – so that whole house, that whole story, that whole energy is being erased. Love to Say Goodbye is our way of getting that story out there so people know who the people were here, what the culture was like and just get a feel of it before it’s gone forever.’’
Roseman Ave is part of Ka¯ inga Ora’s Roskill South development. The project will see about 260 state homes replaced with 920 ‘‘warm, dry, healthy homes’’, a third of which will be state houses.
It’s not that they don’t understand the need for more houses, Cowley-lupo says, ‘‘it’s about the dismantling of communities and friendships and relationships’’.
Leach’s lightning-bolt call to Ka¯ inga Ora was far from the first conversation he’d had with the Crown housing agency. For some time they had been trying to come up with an appropriate send-off for number three.
The seed for the theatre was planted during a socially distant lockdown chat with Tanya Muagututi’a, founder of arts collective Pacific Underground, fellow Mt Roskill local and now the artistic director for Love to Say Goodbye. By the time the diggers were outside and the idea crystallised, Leach had won enough of Ka¯ inga Ora’s trust for them to believe him when he said the idea was good.
It’s still been an ‘‘uphill battle’’ getting access to the houses, he says. With a safety report currently barring entry to the building of number three, the company was relying on using next door for rehearsing. But last Saturday, Leach got a letter to say number five would be demolished.
A Sunday of letter-writing and phone calls and rallying the troops followed: ‘‘I kept saying, ‘those kids are worth it’. I’m sick of hearing, ‘we can’t do this because...’’’
Number five was saved, but there’s still a question mark over what they’ll be able to access on the properties.
Muagututi’a has a long history of providing programmes for young people, starting herself when she was in her early 20s after realising that ‘‘as Pasifika … we have to provide our own platforms’’.
The success of this platform will be seen in how well it acts as a springboard for what the company does next.
‘‘It’s not just we want to tell our story and that’s it,’’ managing producer Bevan Peace says.
Rather, it’s about nurturing a creative scene in Roskill, and giving emerging artists a company they can trade off. ‘‘It’s not about turning a buck and making a theatre company and selling shows.’’
When the set is packed up after the March performances, the houses will be torn down. New properties will go up, new families will move in – but No 3 Roskill Theatre will remain.
So will something more fundamental, company member Mana Tatafu says.
‘‘The reason we can love to say goodbye is that the spirit won’t change, the bond is strong – there are a lot of proud Roskill people who will hold on to that.’’