REVIEW: Standard Acts (Auckland Fringe)

March 13, 2021

[For Women to wrestle with…] There’s a large black square mat in front of us. A small table sits behind it, with a bottle of champagne, two glasses, and a tape deck on top. Karin McCracken and Arlo Gibson enter the sparsely designed space, both donned in workout gear and knee-pads, and we wait for someone to speak. The anticipation […]

REVIEW: Working on my Night Moves (Basement Visions)

March 11, 2019

[Moving into Light] Developed with support from Creative New Zealand and the well-respected Battersea Arts Centre, London, Working on My Night Moves is the latest offering from Julia Croft and Nisha Madhan, which promises to be ‘a journey into outer space and an attempt to diffuse power and hierarchy.’ Presented by Basement Theatre as part of the new Basement Visions […]

REVIEW: Medusa (Q Matchbox)

October 27, 2018

[Reclaiming Female Rage] Smashing all my preconceptions of what theatre and the mythological story of Medusa are about, co-creators Nisha Madhan, Julia Croft, and Virginia Frankovich have created an aural, visceral and mind-blowing ‘out-of-this-world’ theatrical experience.  There were no snakes in this production, no monstrous females, no men being turned into stone — but there was a lot of female […]

REVIEW: Body Double (Silo/Auckland Arts Festival)

March 28, 2018

[Look Again] Desire as an autonomous experience. Now there’s a novel idea. It’s no secret that sexual education across the board is still lacking, whether we’re talking about sexual orientation, contraception, or even basic female anatomy, but something that isn’t often spoken of is a woman’s power to experience and shape her own desire outside of the patriarchal lens. This […]

REVIEW: The Plastic Orgasm (Auckland Fringe)

March 8, 2018

[Radical Failure] The term ‘radical failure’ is used during the centrepiece of The Plastic Orgasm, a paganistic ritual that blows up the show, releasing a primal scream of questions and confusions onto the stage. The act of failure implies an attempt has been made. You can’t fail without trying. You can’t succeed without risking failure. So, to call The Plastic […]

REVIEW: Power Ballad (Zanetti Productions)

June 13, 2017

[Charged Space] For those that have seen Julia Croft in If There’s Not Dancing in the Revolution, Then I’m Not Coming, you can think of Power Ballad as its angrier, less-forgiving sister.  Back again after its season in the Auckland Fringe (reviewed by Nathan Joe), Power Ballad is fundraising to go all the way to the Edinburgh Fringe. It is intentionally difficult to […]

REVIEW: Boys (Auckland Theatre Company)

May 3, 2017

[Torn Foreskin] Having premiered originally in 1980, Greg McGee’s Foreskin’s Lament might be the quintessential Kiwi drama, putting our nation’s favourite sport under the microscope. Despite its reputation, it lives in a state of antiquity like most of the New Zealand theatre canon, sitting on the shelves often to be appreciated rather than performed. While it would be interesting to […]

REVIEW: Power Ballad (Auckland Fringe)

March 9, 2017

[Language Games] Julia Croft’s If There’s Not Dancing at the Revolution, Then I’m Not Coming used feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey as the jumping off point for a riotous deconstruction of female representation in our popular media. It put those common tropes we often take for granted under a critical lens and scrutinised the hell out of them, all while […]

REVIEW: The Elephant Thief (Indian Ink)

June 20, 2016

[Stealing the Show] One good reason to appreciate Indian Ink is that they are an established theatre company that take genuine risks in their work while cohesively maintaining a focus towards the longevity of their art. This is by no means a simple or easy achievement. To refrain from resting on artistic laurels requires exploration into new and sometimes unsuccessful territory, which can […]

REVIEW: If There’s Not Dancing at the Revolution, I’m Not Coming

February 25, 2016

[This is Julia] Julia Croft’s one-woman show If There’s Not Dancing at the Revolution, I’m Not Coming was not only one of my favourite two shows from 2015, but also one of the best pieces of theatre I have ever witnessed. Seeing the show for a second time, I found that while I maintained a superficial recognition of the original, […]

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