REVIEW: You Can Always Hand Them Back (Auckland Theatre Company)

April 6, 2016

[Generation Gap] The experience of watching a play clearly not designed for you can be an alienating experience. You Can Always Hand Them Back is unapologetic in this regard, directly addressing the intended audience right from the get go: “Are any of you grandparents? Of course you are or you wouldn’t be here!” And yet, here I am: gay, Chinese […]

REVIEW: Lysistrata (Auckland Theatre Company)

August 4, 2015

Make love… and theatre… not war [by Matt Baker] The serendipity of coming across the fourth entry in this Cracked article today was not lost on me. Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata over 2,400 years ago and, according to the opening night audience, dick jokes are just as funny now as they were then, and if there is one person in New Zealand […]

REVIEW: Other Desert Cities (Auckland Theatre Company)

May 12, 2014

Other American Plays [by James Wenley] The desert looking back at us is not quite the one from the popular imagination: wind turbines populate the otherwise arid landscape. Is this a symbol of progressivism and human achievement, or a blot on the natural expanse? This dessert is Palm Springs, and the centrepiece of Rachael Walker’s eye-catching stage design is a massive […]