In 2009, Rob Mokaraka, well-known actor and TV personality, became suicidal, and threatened police with a meat cleaver, apparently wanting to be killed.
He was shot, outside his home in Point Chevalier, and spent a long time healing, both physically and emotionally, after being diagnosed as having suffered for many years from depression.
Now, in 2016, he is touring the country in his one-man show, Shot Bro!, which we saw last week at Te Pou Tokomanawa Theatre in New Lynn.
Rob has turned his near-death experience into a powerful evocation of his depression, unnamed and unacknowledged since his childhood. In the forum with the audience after the performance Rob talked about his journey through mental illness into managing his mental health.
One of Rob’s support people is Mike King, the Maori comedian who has also experienced depression and now helps others through his work in schools and on radio and TV. “Secrets make you sick”, Mike told Rob. Rob recently performed his show for his own whanau. It enabled them to talk about how some family members over several generations have suffered from depression, and the different ways it has affected them and the whanau.
Shot Bro! is theatre at its most riveting – turning the inside of a man’s heart and mind outside and enabling us to experience his journey. And to make us laugh as well as cry, and to learn more about how to help.
For more about Rob’s journey, see:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11284784
and we hope you have a chance to see his show.
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