[Stories for Every Body] Originally booked for a debut season in 2021, Stories About My Body is one of the first rescheduled performances in the indoor space and heralds a welcome return to the Basement’s post-lockdown programming. Writer and performer Morgana O’Reilly, known for her role in the Emmy awarding winning short-form series INSiDE and Naomi Canning (Neighbours), is fresh […]
[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 […]
[Pulled from the Past] Anticipation for the opening night of Pork and Poll Taxes has been building within the Pan-Asian community for weeks – encouraged by a mesmerising trailer for the production which showcases the production’s fusion of movement and story. By opening night, the atmosphere in the foyer of the Herald Theatre is palpable. It has been a long […]
[After the Mourning, Comes… ] Originally produced thirteen years ago by playwright and director Ahi Karunaharan, The Mourning After is a semi-autobiographical tale of what happens when the protagonist Shekar (Jehangir Homavazir) leaves New Zealand to visit his ancestral homeland of Sri Lanka in order to return his father’s ashes. As we enter Q’s foyer, kind faces encourage us to […]
[More than a Youth Show] In 2019 I wrote a review which included a meme that intimated that the ATC youth shows excite me more as an audience member than much of what appears in the main programme. Now in 2021 ATC, with the support of Proudly Asian Theatre (PAT), offers Yang/Young/杨 as part of the Here and Now season […]
[Move it, Groove it] Dreamworks’ Madagascar is a phenomenon – a franchise that a has netted over US$2.2 billion, entertaining kids and adults worldwide for over 15 years. It boasts three sequels, computer games and enough merchandise to collapse the Star Wars universe. As a stage show Madagascar the Musical is clearly something that many families will want to experience, […]
[How Not to Survive a Plague] Why do some people move through the world with more ease than others? It’s something I think about a lot. A lack of trauma or baggage, I suppose. So what happens to a man who is a bundle of tightly wound trauma? Well, the expectations of dramatic narrative say we pull him apart and […]
[Existing In Between] “Kūpapa (noun) collaborator, ally, — a term that came to be applied to Māori who sided with Pākehā opposition or the Government. There has been a shift from a general meaning of neutrality to the modern use, which now sometimes has derogative connotations; traitor.” – maoridictionary.co.nz This play, however, is no straightforward indictment of protagonist and historical […]
[“No Longer Will I Be Painted with a Tainted Brush”] From the moment Rūtene Spooner hops out of the audience and onto the stage, requests a vodka soda, and welcomes everybody (particularly the “cuzzie’s on the comps”), we are taken on a journey of musical theatre, kapa haka, and essential kōrero. Spooner introduces himself as a ‘haka-boogie-hori’, and his sense […]
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