REVIEW: Shark in a Boat (Geoff Allen)

March 4, 2025

Two strangers (Joseph Wycoff and Max Easey) book a fishing trip under a veteran sailor (Suzy Sampson).  Out on the water, the trio’s plans are scuppered by a series of escalating dangers…  While waiting for help, they find a young woman (Meg Sara Andrews) floating on the water – another survivor of the sea.  Can this weary foursome survive the […]

REVIEW: Camping (Silo)

December 7, 2024

Two couples, one double-booked Airbnb — it’s a modern-day nightmare that usually spirals into awkward pleasantries or passive-aggressive remarks. But throw Kura Forrester, Chris Parker, Tom Sainsbury, and Brynley Stent into the mix, and you get Camping: a chaotic, hilarious cocktail of absurdity and brilliance. First conceived in the 2016 Comedy Festival as a one-hour Basement Theatre show Camping has […]

REVIEW: H.R. The Musical (Q Theatre)

December 3, 2024

Mansplain it to me There’s something remarkable about a show returning to Q Theatre three times in a single year, so I was eager to finally catch H.R. The Musical in this short season. As someone with a decade of experience in the tech industry, I’ve been shaped by the influence of HR — from onboarding and exit interviews to […]

REVIEW: A Slow Burlesque (Silo)

November 18, 2024

Freya Silas Finch’s one-hour solo show leaves me feeling acutely aware of my own gender — like a bandaid I want to tear away yet can’t quite remove despite persistent efforts to pry it off. At the start of A Slow Burlesque Finch addresses the audience: “You’ll be walking down the street five years later, see a man with a […]

REVIEW: Ngā Rorirori (Kōanga Festival 2024)

October 14, 2024

[Presented by Tawata Productions] Ngā Rorirori is an energetic and expansive farce, which explores interpersonal relationships and individual attitudes to treatment of whenua; through an impressive emulsion of dance, theatre, and song. The play follows Pillow and Manuela Rorirori, a brother and sister. Manuela is an activist and organisational wiz, while Pillow is a convicted fraudster and smooth talker. They […]

REVIEW: Māori Krishna + AltarNative (Kōanga Festival 2024)

September 30, 2024

Māori Krishna + AltarNative is an enchanting and educational double-bill of semi-autobiographical solo performance pieces. Despite being insular and episodic, the two constituent pieces are linked by shared themes and subject matter. This connection between pieces is cemented by the audience’s involvement in the pack-away and set-up between shows, and the lack of break in performance between the pieces. The […]

REVIEW: Our Own Little Mess (A Slightly Isolated Dog)

September 30, 2024

A show about that time at 3 am when you cannot sleep and end up fixating on how you ended up at this stage of your life, Our Own Little Mess is amazing. And incredibly depressing. And funny! And terrifying! Sometimes at the same time!  The power of theatre! Maybe it speaks to my own subjectivity but I was completely in sync […]

REVIEW: No Time to Dry (Basement Theatre)

May 30, 2024

No Time to Wait Basement Theatre’s Studio is so tightly packed with eager audience members before the premiere of playwright and director Lucy Dawber’s latest comedic offering No Time to Dry, that a Basement staff member ends up giving their seat to the final person to enter the room. There’s an anticipation in the air that I’ve rarely experienced like […]

REVIEW: AIGA (Te Pou)

March 24, 2024

AIGA is an emotive and visually spectacular devised performance piece, which deals with themes of interaction and desire as a Pasifika woman with disabilities. The performance piece consists of biographical vignettes made up of singing, dancing, poetry, and acted scenes. The main performer and subject of the piece, Lusi Faiva, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at the age of two. […]

REVIEW: O le Pepelo, le Gaoi, ma le Pala’ai (Auckland Theatre Company)

March 16, 2024

The Road to Leadership is Through Service As soon as O le Pepelo, le Gaoi, ma le Pala’ai (The Liar, the Thief, and the Coward) starts, the audience is immersed in the Samoan language. The opening monologue by Vaofefe (The Village Vale), played by Jesme Fa’auuga, is recited fully in Samoan — no subtitles provided.  A bilingual production requires a […]

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