Bruce Stewart (playwright)


Bruce Richard Stewart was a New Zealand fiction writer and dramatist of Ngāti Raukawa Te Arawa descent. Stewart's work often expresses the anger, the confused loyalties, and the spiritual aspirations of late-twentieth-century Māori.

Biography

Stewart was born in Hamilton. His pakeha biological father had no involvement with him, and his Maori mother Molly Daphne Hirini has said that her Tainui tribe frowned on mixed-race children. Stewart got his name from his stepfather Donald Lewis Stewart, who married Molly Hirini in 1938. Molly died in 1954. Stewart grew up in Masterton and was educated at Wairarapa College.
He lived mainly in Wellington, where he successfully set up the first work trust and founded Tapu Te Ranga Marae at Island Bay, creating a centre for debate and education in Māori culture and protocol and for the redevelopment of native bush. He was president of Nga Puna Waihanga in 1982.
Stewart died at Tapu Te Ranga on 28 June 2017.

Published and televised

Broken Arse was published in Into the World of Light and Stewart later rewrote it as a playscript, which was performed in Wellington in 1990, televised and published by Victoria University Press in 1991. In that dramatic form, the strength of the rebellious prisoners stomping and chanting in unison became even more powerful as haka.

Books

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Performance

Reviews of performance at Depot Theatre

Review