Director Alison Walls’ version of Dance Nation by American playwright Clare Barron is the strongest work staged at the Court Theatre this season. Much of this rests on Barron’s script, which is a work of interiority in sharp focus. Headed by their stereotypically authoritarian dance teacher, a group of pre-adolescent tweens compete to win a dance competition. Over the course […]
[Camp Confectionary] I’ve always had a strange relationship with musical theatre, a genre that demands a level of sentimentality I don’t always believe it earns. In a way a musical has to work a lot harder to move me, maybe because deep down I can feel the wheels turning. The emotional beats too easily replaced by songs, arcs rushed, etc. […]
[Man-made horrors] The corrupting influence of human nature versus nurture is at the heart of Frankenstein, both the original story and this stage adaptation. It’s one of those classics that speaks to the human condition in a timeless way. It’s one of those classics that barely needs introduction, its mythology so embedded into our cultural consciousness. The iconic tale of […]
[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 […]
Size Isn’t Everything This past Saturday (30th Nov 2019), over the course of 14 hours, Christchurch audiences were treated to a lineup of live performance at CoCA art gallery. The Ōtautahi Tiny Performance Festival is a first-ever event, presented by Movement Arts Practice (curated by artistic director Julia Harvie). Appropriately nicknamed Tiny Fest, reflecting its short-lived existence and the intimate scale […]
The Christchurch Arts Festival opens this week. Critic Nathan Joe selects his six must-see events that offer vastly distinct flavours and genres. When you first look at the programme for the Christchurch Arts Festival you might be struck by the lack of international acts. What seems like a glaring omission, upon closer inspection, is an acknowledgement of Ōtautahi’s fiercely creative […]
[Shakespearean Speed Run] I don’t really have much time for new productions of Shakespeare these days, especially when it comes to productions that are done in a so-called traditional manner. We live in an age where pretty high quality interpretations of these classics exist, yet are still performed ad nauseam in our cultural landscape. Romeo & Juliet is a particularly […]
[The New Every(wo)man] The legacy of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch is one of modest beginnings, with Mitchell playing the title character Off-Broadway back in 1998. That it went on to become a cult film and subsequently a Broadway and international success is a testament to the quality and originality of its material. Even […]
[Punk Rock Pastoral] Nathan Joe reports in from Christchurch on The Court Theatre’s summer musical. The Court Theatre’s annual musical is a long-held tradition and highlight of the Christchurch theatre scene; one that I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing multiple times in the past few years. Following their flawlessly faithful rendition of Chicago and the appropriately frothy Legally Blonde, New […]
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