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Dead Bird: Reflections on The Seagull (A New Version by Auckland Theatre Company)

by Nathan Joe in Auckland Theatre Company

During the Covid-19 lockdown, Auckland Theatre Company launched a four episode adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull created within the constraints of social distancing at the time. Using the now widely used Zoom app as its mode of production, it was also set within the world of Zoom too, placing its characters squarely within the circumstances of our global pandemic. Nathan Joe responds.  ADAPTATION This isn’t the first time either co-writers Eleanor Bishop (BOYS, Mrs. Warren’s Profession) and Eli Kent (Peer Gynt: Recycled) have adapted a classic from the theatre canon. It is, however, certainly the adaptation that feels the [...]

REVIEW: 48 Nights on Hope Street (Auckland Theatre Company)

September 17, 2020
[Hope abounds, the theatre is alive] 48 Nights on Hope Street is a triumphant addition to an anthological tradition.  Drawing on Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, Auckland Theatre Company has brought together the works of five talented young writers, Freya Daly Sadgrove, Leki Jackson-Bourke, Nathan Joe, Ana Scotney, and Cian Elyse White.  Set during the Black Death epidemic, the Decameron is a story cycle […]

REVIEW: Black Lover (Auckland Theatre Company)

September 13, 2020
[Unearthing the realities of Anti-Black Racism] Black Lover is a tale about colonial violence during the mid-1960s prelude to Zimbabwe’s fight for independence, sparked by increasing resistance to rule by a White-only minority. Written by Stanley Makuwe, it follows the fever-ridden agitation of Rhodesia’s former colonial leader, Garfield Todd (Cameron Rhodes), who is trapped at home due to a house […]

STREAMING REVIEW: Change Your Own Life (BATS Theatre)

June 14, 2020
[Potent in Any Medium] Jean Sergent’s solo show returns from Fringe to the stage and your nearest screen. Change Your Own Life is a guide to navigating where the body, immense love, and overwhelming grief intersect.  With the lockdown and social distancing closing theatres and keeping audiences apart since March, transitioning to an online platform has become a popular alternative […]

Dead Bird: Reflections on The Seagull (A New Version by Auckland Theatre Company)

June 10, 2020
During the Covid-19 lockdown, Auckland Theatre Company launched a four episode adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull created within the constraints of social distancing at the time. Using the now widely used Zoom app as its mode of production, it was also set within the world of Zoom too, placing its characters squarely within the circumstances of our global pandemic. […]

STREAMING REVIEW: Butcher Holler Here We Come (Ad Hoc Economy)

April 11, 2020
[Coming to (home) theatres] American theatre company Ad Hoc Economy was due to play Wellington’s BATS Theatre in the final week of the NZ Fringe before travelling on to the Dunedin Fringe, but performances were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The company filmed scenes from the show while at BATS, which has been spliced with scenes recorded by individual […]

When the Show Doesn’t Go On

March 19, 2020
When people ask me what I’m into, I struggle to list anything beyond “theatre.” I’m a theatre obsessive. A tragic. I decided long ago to make it a core part of my identity, and I’ve stubbornly stuck to that pact ever since. In those moments when I take a hard look at my relationship with theatre, wondering if it would […]

SCENE BY NATHAN: Auckland Pride and Fringe 2020

March 17, 2020
Community Makeovers LOUD AND PROUD 2020 marks my first Pride and Fringe in Tāmaki Makaurau not as a resident but as a mere visitor. Both events also took on new directors and new directions as they entered the new decade. While I still find myself deeply invested in the arts ecology of the city, and undoubtedly see my future here, […]

REVIEW: Black Lover (Auckland Theatre Company)

March 16, 2020
[A Kiwi Hero in Zimbabwe] When Sir Garfield Todd denounced racial injustice in 1950s Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), he was fiercely hated by supporters of white minority rule. Among the pejoratives they called him was “black lover”. Stanley Makuwe’s Black Lover is an illuminating glimpse into an overlooked chapter of history: a remarkable chapter which saw the Invercargill-born Todd become Prime Minister of […]

REVIEW: The Book of Mormon (The Civic)

March 14, 2020
Hasa Diga Eebowai The Book of Mormon is a deliciously devilish critique belief and human frailty in our world today. The story follows two Latter-day Saints missionaries as they attempt to convert the inhabitants of a remote Ugandan village to the “true faith”. The well-meaning, and somewhat earnest young men are challenged by a lack of interest from the locals, who are preoccupied by […]

REVIEW: Essays in Love (Basement Theatre)

March 14, 2020
[What the Heart Knows] I’ll admit it: I’m a hopeless romantic.  It’s a quality I share with Otto (Leon Wadham), the protagonist of Essays in Love, though we differ in our preferred outlets for romantic escapism: me, a never-ending catalogue of romantic comedies; Otto, the writings of history’s most erudite philosophers.  We first meet Otto before the house lights have […]

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For reviews of theatre playing elsewhere in New Zealand, go to Theatreview.org.nz 

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