Bruce Mason Biography

New Zealand playwright, born in Wellington, educated at Victoria University College, Wellington. Of Mason's early plays, The End of the Golden Weather (1962), and his ‘Maori plays’, particularly The Pohutukawa Tree (1960) and Awatea (1969), were of most interest. The End of the Golden Weather became synonymous with the New Zealand intellectual culture of the 1960s, as Mason toured the country presenting the multiple faces of his childhood in a tour de force of solo performance. The play presents a nostalgic view of an eccentric and often intolerant small community. It was later revamped (1989/90) as a production for many players. The socalled ‘Maori plays’ collected together under the title The Healing Arch (1987) now appear to represent a rather ethnocentric use of Maori society, ritual, and customs; the most successful of them, The Pohutukawa Tree, continued to be popular and much produced. Blood of the Lamb (1981), about a lesbian couple who raise a child, also received much attention. Critical writings and reviews were collected together under the title Every Kind of Weather in 1986.