REVIEW: Yang/Young/杨 (Auckland Theatre Company)

July 26, 2021

[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 […]

REVIEW: Deep (Auckland Fringe)

February 27, 2020

[Lost in the Dark] Deep is a puppet theatre production that follows the story of marine archaeologist Rebekah Poleman (Natasha Daniel) who gets untethered from her submarine and becomes stranded four-thousand feet below the ocean surface and with only an hour of oxygen to spare. The story traces Poleman’s encounters with various underwater creatures as she attempts to survive the […]

REVIEW: PINAY (Proudly Asian Theatre)

August 19, 2019

[Writing a New Chapter] As I watch PINAY I feel like I’m being enveloped in a familiar warmth. It’s a warmth reminiscent of the comfort of a home cooked meal, or the intimacy of a well known embrace, or the rays of the afternoon summer sun kissing your skin. PINAY is a story of family relationships and identity wrapped up in […]

REVIEW: Tide Waits for No Man (Auckland Fringe)

February 22, 2019

[Treading the Imprints of Cultural Traditions] As the light slowly fades up to the sound of ocean waves breaking, a line of Chinese calligraphy is revealed stretching across the scrim that forms the backdrop to the stage. The bleeding line of ink might represent a jagged mountain range, but perhaps also a fracture or rip in the identity of the […]

REVIEW: Orientation (Proudly Asian Theatre)

September 11, 2018

[Roots] Can love transcend race? Is it better to have loved and lost your identity then not to have loved at all? These are just two of the poignant questions asked by Orientation, intelligently written and compellingly directed by Chye-Ling Huang. Against the backdrop of the legacy of colonialism that continues to inform racial politics in contemporary Aotearoa, Orientation is […]

REVIEW: Roots (Auckland Fringe)

March 4, 2018

[Journey to the Past and Future] New Zealand is a country with a strong migratory history, but too rarely are the stories of our Asian roots given room to breathe and grow on stage, which is one of the reasons why Proudly Asian Theatre represents an integral component to both our theatrical and cultural landscape. With only four stage productions […]

REVIEW: Call of the Sparrows (Proudly Asian Theatre)

October 14, 2016

[Reasons to be Proud] From their modest beginnings with productions of David Henry Hwang’s FOB and Renee Liang’s Lantern, Proudly Asian Theatre have proven themselves as a necessary presence within the local theatre scene. Developed over the last two years using Short + Sweet as a testing ground, Call of the Sparrows is the culmination of their hard work and […]