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    Theatre Reviews

    REVIEW: Cock (Silo Theatre)

    [No Joke] It seems only fitting that director Shane Bosher return to Auckland to direct a play from his bucket list for the company he co-founded. Presented by Silo Theatre and Auckland Live, the title [...]
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    Theatre Reviews

    REVIEW: My Best Dead Friend (Q Matchbox)

    [Backstreet Dunedin] The show begins with our performer already on stage, smiling and jigging about to the Backstreet Boys playing over the speakers. The set consists of large blackboards and not much else. It’s bare, [...]
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In the Spotlight

REVIEW: West Side Story (The Civic)

by James Wenley in Musicals

[West Side for Life] A whistle. The Jets gang lounge around like the they own the city. A beat. One starts clicking. The others join in. They get together and strut. On the lighter notes their arms and legs slide out for a balletic flourish. They stop in their tracks when members of the Sharks arrive. Whites versus Puerto Ricans in 1950s New York. The dance continues, each group trying to out-man the other. You wish these gawky boys could get over their turf war and bigotry and instead team up to form a massive contemporary ballet troupe. It’s West [...]
cock-auckland-live-1133x628

REVIEW: Cock (Silo Theatre)

July 25, 2017
[No Joke] It seems only fitting that director Shane Bosher return to Auckland to direct a play from his bucket list for the company he co-founded. Presented by Silo Theatre and Auckland Live, the title of Mike Bartlett’s Laurence Olivier Award-winning play may put some people off, but it epitomises the raw honesty of the dialogue which drives Bartlett’s script. […]
deadbestfriend

REVIEW: My Best Dead Friend (Q Matchbox)

July 17, 2017
[Backstreet Dunedin] The show begins with our performer already on stage, smiling and jigging about to the Backstreet Boys playing over the speakers. The set consists of large blackboards and not much else. It’s bare, empty, and ready for a story to unfold. Anya Tate-Manning jumps straight into it by setting the scene and describing her tight knit group of […]
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REVIEW: The Road that Wasn’t There (Trick of the Light)

July 15, 2017
[Off the Beaten Track] Framed as a story within a story, cleverly designed to appeal to both the cynics and dreamers inside all of us, The Road that Wasn’t There unfolds through the fantastical tales of Maggie (Elle Wootton), while her adult son, Gabriel (Paul Waggott), considers moving her into a retirement home so she can be better looked after. […]
jekyll

REVIEW: Jekyll and Hyde (A Slightly Isolated Dog)

July 10, 2017
[Lightness Within] After the roaring success of Don Juan in 2016, theatre company Slightly Isolated Dog present the twisted story of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The cast give audiences no time to ease into the fun ahead, instead they’re already waiting outside the theatre ready to introduce themselves and lavish compliments upon everyone they see. Various frivolous hats and […]
mooncake

REVIEW: The Mooncake and the Kūmara (Oryza Foundation)

July 1, 2017
[Pertinent Then and Now] The set is a quiet ghost of a fantasy. Cloth draped from driftwood billows outward, echoing a midnight nature. Several levels built from wood allow the actors to play into contexts of hierarchy and distance. Set designer John Verryt does well, matching the set to mythic histories. The Mooncake and the Kūmara, written by Mei-Lin Te Puea Hansen […]
hudsonandhall

REVIEW: Hudson and Halls Live (Silo)

June 30, 2017
[Live Culinary Magic] Having missed the first incarnation of Hudson and Halls Live! we were adamant to see it this time ’round.  We had heard nothing but good things so expectations were very high. Luckily we can report that after seeing it in the flesh, the show not only delivered on the hype but far exceeded hopes.  The epic timing of the dynamic […]
When Sun and Moon Collide, by Briar Grace-Smith, dir Rawere Paratene, an Auckland Theatre Company production. Production photography: Michael Smith

REVIEW: When Sun and Moon Collide (Auckland Theatre Company)

June 27, 2017
[Running on Empty] Everyone in When Sun and Moon Collide are running from something, haunted by the spectres of their pasts. Briar Grace-Smith’s contemporary classic takes these figurative and metaphorical ghosts and brings them to the fore, tying them into a tangled mess of poetry made flesh. It’s a shame then that the aspirations and images evoked in the text aren’t […]
sparrow

REVIEW: Alexander Sparrow – DJ Trump and De Sade (Garnet Station)

June 25, 2017
After first encountering character actor Alexander Sparrow do his Trump impersonation on very same night that Trump won the 2016 election, Tim George went to Garnet station to check out two of Sparrow’s latest shows: DJ Trump and De Sade. [Christ Trump] I’ve always wanted to be roasted by a comedian. I never thought it would be by Donald Trump. Reprising […]
westsidestory

REVIEW: West Side Story (The Civic)

June 25, 2017
[West Side for Life] A whistle. The Jets gang lounge around like the they own the city. A beat. One starts clicking. The others join in. They get together and strut. On the lighter notes their arms and legs slide out for a balletic flourish. They stop in their tracks when members of the Sharks arrive. Whites versus Puerto Ricans […]
poropoti

REVIEW: Poropiti (The Basement)

June 22, 2017
[Back to the Future] Creators and performers Tola Newbery and Mara TK take us through the landscape of New Zealand’s colonial history from a Māori perspective. In what is essentially a poetic history lesson, using a fusion of movement and music, we are transported from the mythic conception of our land to our capitalist present. It’s a multi-disciplinary work that […]

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