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 […]
The Court Theatre’s world premiere of Sense and Sensibility is a production of flair, noise and caricature. Whilst playwright Penny Ashton and director Hillary Moulder have a good handle on adapting the narrative dimensions of the source material, this production struggles to make any of it matter. For audience members new to Austen, this is unlikely to be an issue. […]
Playing at The Court Theatre, the Ōtautahi debut of The Māori Sidesteps is a contemporary evolution of the Māori showband featuring performers Erroll Anderson (Ngā Puhi), Cohen Holloway (Ngāti Toa Rangatira), Regan Taylor (Ngāti Kahungunu – Te Arawa), Jamie McCaskill (Ngāti Tamaterā, Ngāti Rangi, Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Tuwharetoa) and Jerome Leota. The production riffs on classic songs from both Aotearoa […]
[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 […]
[Forest-dwelling Fantasia] The Court Theatre’s The Wind in The Willows follows the ever-loved classical tale of Mole, Ratty, Badger and Toad of Toad Hall. The script was adapted from Kenneth Grahame’s story by Alan Bennett in 1991, bringing a renewed lens to the original tale, now nearly thirty years established in theatre. Director Ross Gumbley has taken the show to […]
Time Capsule Pacific Underground’s influence as a landmark theatre company has deeply shaped our nation’s theatre canon, particularly through works such as Dawn Raids, A Frigate Bird Sings, and Niu Sila. So The Court Theatre’s revival of seminal Fresh off the Boat, the very first play Pacific Underground ever did (in 1993), is a significant acknowledgement of the company’s place […]
Slow Burn Part of The Court Theatre’s Forge season, an alternative programme to their mainbill productions, Jacqueline Goldfinger’s The Arsonists plays like a homage to great American playwrights such as Tennessee Williams and Sam Shepard. Described as a love letter to her father, Goldfinger’s narrative is focussed around the parental-child relationship of M (Monique Clementson) and H (Roy Snow). Their […]
Best Served Cold There’s something timeless about the deceitful machinations that run through Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The French epistolary novel, originally published in 1782, and adapted by Christopher Hampton, has the Wildean wit of a sharp knife dipped in poison. The dastardly duo at the center of the play, the Marquise de Merteuil (Eilish Moran) and Vicomte de Valmont (Fergus […]
[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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