REVIEW: Squirt (Auckland Fringe)

February 28, 2020

[Poetic Liberation] A shadow dashing between curtains is the only signal that Squirt is nearly ready to start on a late evening at Q Loft. That and the tables with sex toys set up onstage. To be precise, one table with sex toys and the other with books and menstrual cups from Wā Collective – I’ll leave it to the reader […]

REVIEW: Game Face (Auckland Fringe)

February 26, 2020

[Playing by Different Rules] Content Notification: Discussion of eating disorders. Honest discussions of beauty and body image – and their truly damaging consequences – are still not common enough in our culture. Talking about eating disorders remains somewhat taboo and, despite many brands attempting to reframe themselves as allied with ‘body positivity’, we are still bombarded with messages about how […]

REVIEW: My Heart Goes Thadak Thadak (Silo Theatre)

November 26, 2019

A Giggleful Expedition to mid-1970s Bombay Inspired by the decade of disco in the city where dreams come true, My Heart Goes Thadak Thadak is a sweeping tribute to the power of fusion in what was to become the world’s largest film industry. Set in 1975 on a film set, the play reveals a tense amalgamation between the Hollywood Western […]

REVIEW: Tiresias (Auckland Fringe)

February 28, 2019

[See the Fates in Action] Simon Rodda and local fiddler Shimna Higgins star in an hour of masterfully woven oral storytelling and live music. Directed by Rebecca Rogers, Tiresias’ 2019 Auckland Fringe season represents the international debut of British Theatre company Heady Conduct. Deep in Q Theatre’s Vault the audience clusters around tables in cabaret seating. There is a murmur of […]

REVIEW: Homos, or Everyone in America (Auckland Pride)

February 2, 2019

[Dive bombing into 21st Century Queer Relationships] In Cock by Mike Bartlett, director Shane Bosher explored the sharp edges of an intimate live-in relationship between two men. Bosher builds on this with a more focused lens in Homos, or Everyone in America by Jordan Seavey: an intense, thought-provoking production grounded in the quick-witted diatribes I’ve come to expect from Bosher’s […]

REVIEW: Sightings (Massive Company)

July 27, 2018

[Unclear Sightings] Morphing through different movements and times, Sightings is a non-linear story centred around one night out. Five young actors deliver a number of twist and turns, essentially through the eyes of Nora (Akinehi Munroe) and Chilli (Ebony Andrew). A product of a writing team comprising Miriama McDowell, Fiona Graham and Denyce Su’a, this new script is a reflection of its various […]

REVIEW: Valerie (Last Tapes)

July 21, 2018

[Theatre at its Finest] Mental health in New Zealand is a prevalent issue and, by consequence, necessary to discuss. 16% of New Zealanders are diagnosed with a mental health issue in their lifetime, comorbidity increases the risk of death, and our suicide rate is the second highest in the OECD. Mental health is also prevalent in the arts, especially theatre, […]

REVIEW: Super Hugh-Man (Q Theatre)

June 30, 2018

[MT Origins: Wolverine] Here’s a Hollywood what-if for you: what if Hugh Jackman was never cast as Wolverine? He wasn’t the first choice. In fact, Jackman famously got the part after X-Men (2000) had already begun filming, when the original actor was injured shooting another movie. There was some disquiet about the choice of 6 foot 3 Jackman to play the […]

REVIEW: Yorick! (Binge Culture)

June 19, 2018

[Dance of Death] Neither an overly-intellectual deconstruction of Hamlet (a la Heiner Muller’s Hamletmachine) or an alternative take on the play (a la Thomas Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead), Binge Culture’s Yorick! merely uses Shakespeare’s canonical text as a launching pad for their whimsical and absurd exploration of mortality. And mortality, being the wide-reaching topic it is, is a […]

REVIEW: Brendan Green: My Mates Dave (NZ International Comedy Festival)

May 19, 2018

[Mate!] If you’ve been paying attention to the NZ Comedy, bets are you’ve heard of Brendon Green. His list of credits is pretty impressive – he’s written for TV’s 7 days and The Project, he’s written and performed multiple stand up shows that have toured NZ and internationally, and he has also mentored upcoming young comedians in the Class Comedians […]

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