REVIEW: The Basement Tapes (The Basement)

March 31, 2018

[The Haunted Space] A Basement. A room that is a trope in itself. We all know how the scene plays out: one dim light sets a glow upon forgotten objects, lurking shadows creep up the walls at odd angles; we have entered the resting place for the old, unwanted or unused, and it’s the perfect setting for a horror story. […]

REVIEW: Body Double (Silo/Auckland Arts Festival)

March 28, 2018

[Look Again] Desire as an autonomous experience. Now there’s a novel idea. It’s no secret that sexual education across the board is still lacking, whether we’re talking about sexual orientation, contraception, or even basic female anatomy, but something that isn’t often spoken of is a woman’s power to experience and shape her own desire outside of the patriarchal lens. This […]

REVIEW: The Naked Samoans Do Magic (Auckland Arts Festival)

March 24, 2018

[Truly Naked Magic] Although fully clothed at all times, The Naked Samoans are well and truly naked on stage in their latest show – their first together in many years.  They don’t try to hide the fact that they are novices at magic. In fact, it is their bare-all attitude that endears them to the audience. Watching people walk into […]

REVIEW: Us/Them (Auckland Arts Festival)

March 24, 2018

[Nyet] Rarely have I seen a show with such a clear vision that was so completely at odds with the material it was based on. Written and directed by Carly Wijs, Us/Them is a re-telling of the 2004 Beslan school siege from the point of view of the children who experienced it. The early sequences, in which two children (performers […]

REVIEW: The Far Side of the Moon (Auckland Arts Festival)

March 24, 2018

[Looking Beyond the Mirror] On 17th of July, 1975, over a billion people tuned into their televisions to watch two men shake hands. Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov reached through the hatch of the Soyuz into the vacuum of Space to shake hands with American astronaut Brigadier General Thomas Stafford. While the rivalry between the two nations’ space programmes had spurred […]

REVIEW: A Brisk Wind Whistling Down Twin Oak Drive (The Basement)

March 22, 2018

[Fun ’n’ Head Games] Created and performed by Phoebe Mason, A Brisk Wind Whistling Down Twin Oak Drive falls somewhere between one-person show and a Choose Your Own Adventure. The story (if one can call it that) starts out simply enough – our unknown protagonist wanders onto the titular street and finds themselves inside a strange house that feels oddly familiar. In the […]

REVIEW: Jack Charles V The Crown (Auckland Arts Festival)

March 17, 2018

[Stories from Uncle Jack] He smiled at me. It was a sunny afternoon in Aotea Square when I recognised the Einsteinian hair and small frame of Jack Charles. I approached him as he puffed away on his cigarette; “Jack Charles, right?”, “That’s right, brother”, he replied, extending his hand to mine. We chatted briefly, I wished him well for his […]

REVIEW: Tea (Auckland Arts Festival)

March 17, 2018

[When the Tea stops Pouring] I’ve followed the work of Ahi Karunaharan closely since The Mourning After, watching him grow and flex his muscles both as a writer and director time and time again. There is an ethos and authenticity to his works; at their finest, they’ve always struck me as being able to open up audiences worldviews without restoring […]

REVIEW: Still Life with Chickens (Auckland Arts Festival)

March 17, 2018

[Fowl Play] Stories don’t get much simpler than this: Mama, a lonely housewife, befriends a stray chicken. That’s it. Simple, yes, but it’s with this understated simplicity that D.F. Mamea’s Still Life with Chickens catches you off-guard. Maybe it’s John Parker’s idyllic backyard set or Goretti Chadwick’s warm and generous performance or Helen Fuller’s puppet chicken (puppeteered by Hannz Fa’avae-Jackson). […]

REVIEW: 1984 (Auckland Arts Festival)

March 13, 2018

[1984, Today] The world is having a 1984 moment. The world has always been having a 1984 moment. When Robert Icke and Duncan MacMillan’s stage adaptation premiered in Nottingham in 2013, the backdrop was all about big data and surveillance anxieties. Edward Snowden’s revelations around NSA spying had many turning to George Orwell’s 1984 for literary parallels. Big Brother was […]

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