REVIEW: Gloria (Vintage Collective)

November 25, 2013

Homeward longing [by James Wenley] Gloria quickly washes over you with a warmly sentimental “feel-good” factor.  This is partly invoked by the knowledge that the one-woman play is based on the true story experiences of war bride Gloria Stanford, and the accompanying nostalgia associated with New Zealand in the World War II era. Then mix in a little national pride: her […]

REVIEW: Zooquatic (The Basement)

November 21, 2013

A fish out of water [by Matt Baker] Having seen the original production of Zooquatic earlier in the year as part of the Short+Sweet Auckland Theatre Festival, I was excited to see in which direction this full-length adaptation would be taken and how much further the parody of the content would be pushed. Absurdist in its comedic style and melodramatic […]

REVIEW: Between the Sheets (Royale Productions and The Large Group)

November 20, 2013

Lessons in Love [by Sharu Delilkan] The tension was palpable from the start. Between the Sheets opens with a go-getting high-flying power suit-wearing woman Marion (Jennifer Ward-Lealand) grilling her son’s teacher Teresa (Beth Allen) on his successes, failures, weaknesses and future. The beauty of Canadian playwright Jordi Mand’s writing is that we think we know the premise of the show, […]

REVIEW: Live at Six (Show Pony)

November 14, 2013

Not the Six O’Clock News… but close enough [by James Wenley] Recall when Judy “Mother of the Nation” Bailey had to read the auto-cue about herself on the six o’clock news when her pay packet became a top news story? That’s one way to respond when the newsreaders become the newsmakers: continue on as normal. Now imagine if Judy Bailey had […]

REVIEW: Verbatim: Two Plays (Last Tapes Theatre Company)

November 13, 2013

Enough said? [by Matt Baker] While I wholly appreciate writer/creator Miranda Harcourt’s personal sentiment that “The poetry of the way real people speak has always been [her] favourite form”, I cannot help but reflect on exactly how it is that verbatim theatre has the ability to make the impact that it can. Recently, I was confronted with the contention that […]

COMPETITION: How well do you know your Musical Concert stars? (Win tickets to Patinkin & Gunn)

November 12, 2013

An evening with Mandy Patinkin and Nathan Gunn… and you?  [by James Wenley] You probably know Mandy Patinkin, current star of Homeland, and Inigo “You killed my father” Montoya in cult hit The Princess Bride (which incidentally has just been announced is being turned into a stage musical!). True Musical Theatre fans will know that Mandy is a phenomenal Broadway performer […]

PREVIEW: The next generation VERBATIM

November 11, 2013

Twenty Years Later [by James Wenley] “New generations of actors and directors keep theatre alive” says NZ Theatre legend Miranda Harcourt, who toured New Zealand prisons with Verbatim, about a home invasion that ends with a murder, in the early 1990s . Miranda had been studying drama therapy in London and returned to New Zealand to create a project with the women […]

REVIEW: Voix de Ville (Lilly Loca’s Vaudeville Cabaret)

November 7, 2013

Vaudevillian tease [by Sharu Delilkan] TAPAC appears to have had a penchant for cabaret and burlesque shows in recent years and we’ve been fortunate to have enjoyed many an entertaining evening there.  So naturally we were curious to see what Lilly Loca’s Vaudeville Cabaret Voix de Ville could offer that was new, exciting and sexy. The show began in a […]

REVIEW: Camino Real (The Actors’ Program)

November 7, 2013

Acting on the Camino Real [by James Wenley] At the Camino Real, to borrow from The Eagles, you can check in any time you like, but you can never leave. To mark the public debut of the second crop of actors from the industry-geared The Actors’ Program, Benjamin Henson directs them in arguably Tennessee Williams’ most experimental and misunderstood work: […]

REVIEW: Chicago (Auckland Theatre Company)

November 4, 2013

Give ‘em the old tit-ill-ation [by James Wenley] If you think you know Chicago, leave your expectations at the theatre door. The stockings haven’t just been rolled down, they’ve been ripped completely off in this down and dirty, hyper-sexualised re-imagining of the Kander and Ebb musical from the warped mind of virtuoso Michael Hurst. There’s jazz, and a whole lot […]