‘Nell was very one-eyed,’ Kiri’s St Mary’s colleague Gillian Redstone said succinctly.
During the Uwane rehearsals Nell’s technique amounted to a form of telephone terrorism. She would sit quietly enough during rehearsals. Once the show’s production team were isolated at home, however, the phone would begin to ring. ‘It was always on the phone. It never stopped rehearsals and never happened publicly,’ says Beverly Jordan.
Lynne Cantlon’s early offer of the role of Uwane had come partly by courtesy of her mother, Una, who had been hired as the show’s wardrobe mistress. Relations between Una and Nell were already difficult – Una Cantlon was no shrinking violet herself – yet they were soon strained further. ‘She was always baling up poor Una,’ recalled Neil McGough. ‘She was saying Kiri’s costumes weren’t quite as nice as someone else’s and couldn’t she have a little more of this here and a bit less of that there.’
Beverley Jordan’s mother also suffered. Like Una Cantlon, she could not curb her tongue for long. ‘I remember both my mother and Lynne’s mother asking her whether she had any experience or had she just come off the marae in Gisborne?’ she said. ‘They both told her if she didn’t know anything about stage work she should keep her mouth shut.’
Even the show’s writer was not beyond a little lobbying. ‘She didn’t want Kiri described as a wicked little witch,’ recalled Lindsay Rowell. ‘She asked me to make a change to the script but I wasn’t changing it for anybody.’
Neil McGough had been exposed to the breed before. Nell’s weakness as a stage mother lay in her inability to know when to stop. ‘We didn’t dislike Nell, we admired her drive,’ he said. ‘She came to all the rehearsals. Everywhere you went, there was Nell. But she always went a step too far.’ To McGough, at least, the real worry was that Nell seemed to be the controlling influence in Kiri’s career. ‘Kiri never gave an impression that she cared terribly that her mother was like this,’ said McGough. ‘Kiri herself was very dominated by her mother.’
Inevitably Sister Mary Leo had also attempted to assert herself on the evolving drama. She had loftily insisted that the script and score were sent to her at St Mary’s. She wanted ‘to check whether there was anything too racy,’ said Lindsay Rowell. Satisfied that her emerging star’s wholesome image was not endangered, she turned her attention to the score itself. ‘And then she stopped Kiri from singing any of the really high notes in case she damaged her voice.’ After that, at least, she maintained a dignified distance from proceedings.
Inevitably Sister Mary Leo and Nell could not protect Kiri at all times. On the rare occasions when she was left to her own devices, however, it was clear she was perfectly capable of looking after herself.
Kiri’s habit of turning up late for rehearsals had done nothing to boost her popularity within an already disgruntled production. ‘Quite often she and her father would be out in the morning playing a round of golf. Everybody thought what a lovely life she led,’ said Beverley Jordan. When, to general dismay, Rowell’s sister Zella eased herself into a position of power within the production Kiri became the inevitable target. Even her own brother declared Zella Rowell ‘a bitch, born and bred. Zella had a way of putting everyone’s back up. She was greedy and selfish and everyone hated her.’ Her attention soon turned to the show’s youngest, least experienced performer.
‘Nasty little sarcastic comments were made between them,’ recalled Lindsay Rowell. ‘Kiri was young and couldn’t really fight back, but she was stubborn and she had quite clear ideas about how she wanted things done.’ The confrontations between the two reached a climax during one of the final rehearsals. ‘Kiri hid in the chorus when she was supposed to be up the front of the stage,’ said Rowell. When Zella demanded she move to her proper position on stage, Kiri refused to budge. ‘She turned to Zella and said, “I don’t care. You can like it or lump it.”’
‘Kiri could be emotional if people upset her. She was pretty strong willed in her own way,’ said Vincent Collins, who witnessed the scene.
If Kiri’s spirits ever sagged during the increasingly fraught rehearsal sessions, comfort was always close at hand in the virile form of her leading man. Kiri and Collins had found few difficulties in conjuring up a convincing chemistry between Uwane and Manaia. Away from rehearsals they had begun seeing each other discreetly.
‘It was a romance for a little while,’ Collins confirmed. On stage at His Majesty’s Collins and Kiri were careful not to arouse suspicions. ‘In my innocence I had thought that Kiri and Vince were just acting,’ remembered Lindsay Rowell’s wife Madeleine who watched most of the rehearsals from the stalls. ‘There was an atmosphere but I thought that was because they were playing lovers.’ Others were able to put two and two together to form an educated opinion of what was unfolding.
‘Kiri was a flirt, and a very pretty flirt at that,’ said Neil McGough. ‘Vincent was a good-looking joker and he thought it was very nice. He did respond a little further than he should have,’ he added. One member of the production was more acutely attuned to developments than anyone, however. Beverley Jordan was all too familiar with the wiles of Vincent Collins.
‘I broke things off with him because he was a charmer and had a lot of ladies on the go,’ she recalled. ‘That wasn’t my cup of tea.’ Jordan claims to have shrugged her shoulders at the romance. ‘I couldn’t have cared less. It was over and if he wanted to get involved with her that was his business,’ she said.
Her mother was less philosophical when she discovered what was going on, however. Jordan returned one night to find her involved in a heated telephone conversation. It was soon apparent who was on the receiving end of the abuse. ‘It turned out to be Nell Te Kanawa,’ Jordan recalled. ‘My mother was telling her she should keep her daughter in check and not keep waltzing off with other people’s boyfriends.’
If the tirade had an effect it was the diametric opposite of that which had been intended. Soon Vincent and Kiri were making no secret of their relationship.
On the evening of Wednesday, 11 April 1962, His Majesty’s Theatre was filled to capacity. For the producers of Uwane, however, the grim reality was that only 200 or so of the 2,000 seats had been paid for. ‘They flooded all the nursing homes with free tickets. You lassoed people off the street if you had to on the night the critics were there,’ said Neil McGough.
The lack of interest in the show’s ‘world première’ could not be blamed on Nell Te Kanawa. In the run up to the opening night she had turned her attentions to drumming up support within her ever extending circle of patrons and supporters within Auckland. At another time and in another place, Nell’s innate skills could have made her a mogul within the world of public relations. She wielded flattery and force with well-practised ease. ‘She could charm the birds from the trees,’ recalled Beverley Jordan. ‘She was an absolutely brilliant PR woman.’ Nell had by now begun to cultivate contacts within the Auckland media. The New Zealand press were intrigued by Uwane’s curiosity value if nothing else. Her mother ensured Kiri’s face became a familiar one as the opening night loomed.
Kiri featured in a lengthy article on the musical in the leading magazine of the day, the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly. On the morning before the show a photograph of Kiri in her traditional flax skirt, or piu-piu, taken at a dress rehearsal the previous Sunday, filled page three of the nation’s most respected newspaper, the New Zealand Herald. Kiri had placed great store in the fact she had no plans to desert her teacher at St Mary’s. In the official Uwane programme she repeated her promise that she had ‘unlike so many of our talented young singers, no desire to travel abroad’. Her words would have gone down well with John Waititi who was among the many to have been given free seats that night. In a late effort to win a little support among Maori organisations, Lindsay and Zella Rowell had announced that all proceeds from the show would go to the Maori Education Foundation. It would soon be clear that the organisation would be the least of the evening’s losers.
At the end of the show the audience applauded enthusiastically. Kiri and Vincent Collins held hands