Time’s Up, Motherf*%ker’: Emasculation and Restaging Justice for Women in Aotearoa New Zealand

Responding to the call for unity amongst female-identifying theatre-makers by the global ‘Time’s Up’ movement, the counter-discursive theatre production Te Puna Hipi (2019) confronted stories of sexual violence from Aotearoa New Zealand. Working with student collaborators from Victoria University of Wellington, Te Puna Hipi retold Lope De Vega’s Fuenteovejuna as a Feminist “Pacific Western”, altering the original play’s narrative to play on, and speak to, the misogyny of so many canonical texts. This discussion explores the representation of literal emasculation in this production as a specific and localised form of justice, utu, as a means to restore balance. The project sought not only to liberate women’s characters in the play, but to empower the actors tasked with reimagining them for an emancipatory, #timesup, world.