Bruce Stewart (playwright)
Bruce Richard Stewart (5 August 1936 – 28 June 2017) 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 (Maori Writers and Artists Society) 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" (1982) 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. Reviewed by; Reviewed by; Performance. Reviews of performance at Depot Theatre