REVIEW: Te Tangi a Te Tūi (Te Pou)

March 14, 2024

Te Tangi a Te Tūī is a ground-breaking collaboration between Te Rēhia Theatre, The Dust Palace and The Cultch, which weaves together elements of Māori pūrakau, circus theatre, spectacular visuals, and stunning choreography to tell the story of the Tūī’s song which becomes an allegory for the beauty and persistence of te reo Māori. The Tūī’s birdsong is complex and […]

REVIEW: Ngā Reta (Te Pou)

December 7, 2023

Ngā Reta is a poignant and humorous solo performance piece, which explores the individual nature of relationships and identity, in total-immersion reo Māori. The play follows Mia’s journey after receiving a box of letters, ngā reta, in the mail. The letters, from Kuia, detail her mother’s life and hint at the identity of her father. This throws Mia into turmoil, […]

REVIEW: Concerning the UFO Sighting Outside Mt Roskill, Auckland (Te Pou)

November 15, 2023

[My Love is Alien] Reon Bell’s (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Te Wairoa) Concerning the UFO Sighting Outside Mt Roskill, Auckland returns to the stage after appearing in the Auckland Pride Festival, and the Kia Mau Festival to kick off the 2023 Rangatahi season at Te Pou Theatre.  Immersed in sci-fi and kiwiana, it’s Auckland, but not as […]

REVIEW: Kūpapa (Te Pou Theatre)

July 5, 2021

[Existing In Between] “Kūpapa (noun) collaborator, ally, — a term that came to be applied to Māori who sided with Pākehā opposition or the Government. There has been a shift from a general meaning of neutrality to the modern use, which now sometimes has derogative connotations; traitor.” – maoridictionary.co.nz This play, however, is no straightforward indictment of protagonist and historical […]

SCENE BY JAMES: 2018 – A Theatrical Year in Review

December 31, 2018

[Representation Matters] Silo Theatre’s production of Mr Burns presented a vision of theatrical futures. In the play by American writer Anne Washburn, survivors of an electricity-ending event band together to form a travelling theatre troupe specialising in the recreation of classic The Simpsons episodes. I begin with Mr Burns here because, while it presents a bleak image for our planet, […]

REVIEW: 等凳 – The Chairs – Cantonese Season (Te Pou) [Two Reviews]

August 3, 2018

[Ashes of Time] by Nathan Joe Te Pou’s language-spanning season of The Chairs ends with an exemplary Cantonese version of the play. The prescriptiveness of Eugene Ionesco’s text is respectfully toyed with, recontextualising the space for a traditional Chinese context. Those with even only the slightest understanding of the culture will find resonances in abundance. The basic scenario stays true […]

REVIEW: O Nofoa – The Chairs – Sāmoan Season (Te Pou) [Two Reviews]

July 28, 2018

[Welcomed to the Fale] by Gabriel Faatau’uu Satiu Under the direction of Aleni Tufuga (also translated by him in gagana Sāmoa), O Nofoa serves as one part of Te Pou’s multilingual season of Eugene Ionesco’s play The Chairs. The show is an absurdist tragic farce. Paying homage to Ionesco’s absurdity through the deliberate nonsense and broadly stylized performance, the timing of […]

REVIEW: He Tūru Māu – The Chairs – Te Reo Māori Season (Te Pou)

July 20, 2018

[An Adventure into the Absurd] Reviewing theatre is a strange activity. It involves sitting self-consciously within and without your own viewpoint, inhabiting and interrogating your own responses to what’s on stage, striving for some kind of balance between subjectivity and objectivity. I say ‘striving for’, because I suspect this elusive balance doesn’t really exist; perhaps it’s more constructive just to […]

REVIEW: The Chairs – Pākehā Season (Te Pou)

July 13, 2018

[Park your Bum] Te Pou Theatre presents a night of absurdity, hilarity, and larger-than-life character work in its inaugural Pākehā season of Ionesco’s The Chairs. Opening Te Pou’s quadruplet of productions of The Chairs in different languages – Te Reo Māori, Samoan and Cantonese are to follow – the English language Pākehā show sets things off to an outrageously energetic start. […]

REVIEW: Tampocalypse (Te Pou)

May 29, 2018

[Tampocalypse now needs a Redux] “At the end of the world, not everything stops.” So claims Embers Collective, a daring new production company set up by Unitec grads, Ashleigh Hook and Rebekah Dack, the dynamic director-producer duo behind Tampocalypse, which concluded Te Pou Theatre’s Rangatahi development season 2018. The show’s tagline couldn’t be more fitting. Tampocalypse gives us a world […]

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