Concrete Playground

What is more honourable: the truth that hurts, or the lie that conceals?

Everyone in the remote township of Omoana is proud of Matt Paku, the local boy who left the East Coast to train as a doctor and now has a successful practice in Auckland. Proudest of all is his blind father Werihe, who basks in this success via his son's letters which are read to him by Emma Gilhooly, the no-nonsense local postmistress. Every New Year's Eve, Matt comes home and the whole community celebrates. But things are different this year; Gilhooly has devastating news, which she must keep from old Werihe if he's to hold onto his belief in his son.

Alongside The Pohutukawa Tree and The End Of The Golden Weather, Awatea completes Bruce Mason's trilogy of powerful New Zealand dramas: a thrilling, heart-wrenching, realistic study of betrayal and disillusionment.