[Grey Matter] Playwright and director Jason Te Mete’s mental health narrative, Little Black Bitch, has graduated from a student-driven ensemble to being the professional premiere for his company Tutara Collective. It’s impossible not to enter and approach the work with heightened expectations though. Winner of the Adam NZ Award for Best Māori Play and glowing reviews from its original season […]
[“Do not take my anger from me!”] Emilia tells the story of Emilia Bassano, one of the first Englishwomen poets and the possible muse behind Shakespeare’s sonnets. However, this is not just a play about Shakespeare’s Emilia. This is a play about Emilia the discriminated poet, Emilia the feminist spirit; Emilia as Emilia. As soon as the performance begins, I […]
[Bridging the Space Between] Silo Theatre and Auckland Arts Festival present Upu, a remounted production of Oceanic poetry, brought alive by Māori and Pasifika performers. An empty thrust stage – boxed in on three sides by the audience – juts out with angular raised platforms. A handful of theatre-goers sit with their backs against the central unit, eyes wide in […]
[Sensory Blurring] Teać Damsa (House of Dance) was founded in 2016 by choreographer Michael Keegan-Douglas “…as a means to forge deeper connections with the traditions, language and the music of Ireland”. In 2019 the New Zealand Festival of the Arts facilitated a six-week residency in Wellington for Keegan-Douglas, which included studio space and a marae noho at Tapu Te Ranga. […]
A Break in the Space-Time Continuum There’s a portal hidden in the corner of Cupid Bar in Point Chevalier. Some might mistake it for a black tent, but it’s bigger on the inside: there’s a confetti chandelier and a large wooden trunk, a string of fairy lights, and a pedestal fan on its highest setting, trying but failing to regulate […]
[The Walls That Divide Us] Billed as a ‘kaleidoscopic tale about migrant experience and reactions to migration’, The Wall is an original, devised production based on real stories that aims to open questions about identity, unconscious bias and the state of the world. Written by Mallika Krishnamurthy and directed by Daniel Fernandez from Babel Theatre, The Wall involves a large […]
[Damsel in Distress] Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is regarded as undeniable classic of the American playwriting canon, however one I haven’t been exposed to before. On opening night of Melanie Luckman’s Court Theatre production, it seemed obvious that it’s not a work commonly known to people of my generation, as my friend and I were the youngest by quite a […]
[Keep on Pulling the Laughs] Dressed in lurid summer clothes, nine Lust Island revellers drink and dance to chart hits as audience members fill the Basement main stage. The performance kicks off as Heartthrobs Comedy producer/director and MC Brynley Stent steps up and explains the format of the hour long improvised show, which is based on the controversial reality TV […]
[An Open Body] Perhaps the best thing about seeing a dance piece like this is its openness to interpretation. It is visual and auditory but without any text to impose meaning on the audience, leaving us to be affected by what we see in a visceral and extremely personal way. Critiquing, by nature, is an act of interpretation – itself […]
[A D8 with a D&D] Dungeons and Dragons has had a meteoric rise in recent years, which some put down to the resurgence of 80’s culture – with the game being heavily featured in Stranger Things – alongside the huge success of RPG shows – namely Critical Role and The Adventure Zone (Can I Get an Underground Location and a […]
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