REVIEW: Heroes (Auckland Theatre Company)

September 8, 2015

Bon Mot Attack [by Matt Baker] At face value, Heroes is not a great play. There is cause for drama, but, like the three characters themselves, it never goes anywhere. There is nothing inherently theatrical about it, its Britishdryness, as implied by the original playwright Gérald Sibleyras himself, being far more suited to a BBC or ITV series. However, three veterans […]

REVIEW: Anne Boleyn (Auckland Theatre Company)

June 16, 2013

The Other Woman [by James Wenley] Boleyn comes encumbered by reputation. She’s called a great deal many things through the course of the play: “the harlot queen”, “intolerable woman”, “witch”, “the whore”. She’s arguably subject to one of history’s great hatchet jobs, the dangerous female who bewitched a King and tore England asunder. For his 2010 drama, Howard Brenton recasts […]

REVIEW: Death of a Salesman (Peach Theatre Company)

October 15, 2012

I’m sold [by Matt Baker] In his opening night speech, director Jesse Peach obscurely alluded to the possibility of Death of a Salesman being his last production*. While I actively concede that this may have been a misinterpretation of inarticulate speech, I would like to think that going out on a high note is the correct course of action in […]

PREVIEW: Death of a Salesman (Peach Theatre Company)

October 7, 2012

Miller’s Memorable Masterpiece [by Sharu Delilkan] The minute Richard Knowles heard that Peach Theatre Company was staging Death of a Salesman he lost no time contacting producer/director Jesse Peach. “I studied Death of a Salesman at school and I even used one of the monologues for my audition at Toi Whakaari. So I wanted to be involved in any way […]

REVIEW: Othello (Peach Theatre Company)

July 25, 2011

Honestly, Iago… [by James Wenley] It might be called Othello, but this one is very much Iago’s show. Iago, the villain in Shakespeare’s Othello, has long threatened to outshine the titular tragic hero. Shakespeare for one gave him substantially more lines and a relentless destructive driving force, plotting to destroy the Moor that he says he hates. Why Iago does […]