Titaua Porcher’s Hina, Maui et compagnie : Theatre for a Snapchat Culture

In today’s digital age, adults and adolescents alike communicate via text messages, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. This is also the case in Tahitian author Titaua Porcher’s play Hina, Maui et compagnie, published in 2018. While ultracontemporary, this play echoes Polynesia’s past, bringing the gods, the legends, and the ‘ōrero of Ancient Tahiti into the present. This chapter focuses on the choice of the performative genre, the author’s engagement with social media, and Porcher’s creative method of elucidating the local and global complexities associated with contemporary transnational debates focused on the environment, overconsumption, as well as the timeless questions of love, of happiness, and of religion. The chapter examines Hina, Maui et compagnie through the lens of mediatization and the influence of contemporary society on the theatrical genre, paying particular attention to Porcher’s attempt to reconcile tradition and modernity by bringing the pan-Polynesian legends of the past into present-day French-speaking Oceania.