REVIEW: Henchmen (Basement)

August 14, 2023

Henchmen, written by Amy Wright, and directed by Mark Chayanat Whittet, is a play that takes the audience into a corporate wonderland hellscape of co-worker small-talk, ‘friendly’ upper middle management, and pretending to look busy while doing absolutely nothing. Having been highly commended by the Playwrights b425 competition, this play is an amalgamation of Megamind mixed in with the corporate […]

REVIEW: Bluebeard’s Castle (NZ Opera)

August 11, 2023

New Zealand Opera and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s production Bluebeard’s Castle reimagines Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s first and only opera of the same name in English and in a modern, suburban setting. Appearing in Aotearoa for a short season of just two precious performances, this courageous contemporary opera superbly manages juxtapositions of dramatic conventions old and new, in a production […]

REVIEW: Butterfly Smokescreen (The Barden Party and Jetpack Theatre)

July 31, 2023

[I’m on a Yacht] The world’s only immersive theatre experience aboard a superyacht? That’s the bold claim made in the ads for Butterfly Smokescreen, and I don’t have any reason to doubt it. The notion of creatives getting the opportunity to make an immersive, murder-mystery theatre show taking place on an actual multi-million-dollar yacht in Aotearoa seems like a pipe […]

REVIEW: Heart Go…Boom! (Massive Theatre Company)

July 30, 2023

Heart Go…Boom! is an entertaining and affecting devised piece which explores and critiques the relationships we have with ourselves, and with others.  The play consists of five performers sharing semi-autobiographical solo pieces and wider ensemble work. The stories depicted are a great mix of universal and personal – from self-service checkout woes to having a twin, or from fitting-in to […]

REVIEW: Basmati Bitch (Q Theatre)

July 15, 2023

[Dreaming of Electric Sheep] We start with a bang. There is no slow dimming of the lights, no hushed waiting in the dark. Straightaway we are launched into catastrophic news reports, chronicling the next 100 years. China and India rise to global dominance amid political turmoil and ongoing climate crisis, creating an authoritarian (though not so unfamiliar) vision of Aotearoa […]

REVIEW: The Bitching Hour (Basement Theatre)

June 29, 2023

[Best Bitches] Carrie Rudzinski and Olivia Hall’s friendship has always been at the heart of their work. In The Bitching Hour it is front and centre, the glue that holds the show together. As soon as they enter, they launch into a poem about being bitches. It is bitching that brings them together – this fun, juicy, feminine-coded (oft degraded) […]

REVIEW: Prima Facie (Herald Theatre)

June 23, 2023

[The Injustice of It All ] Holding court for 100-minutes is a feat in itself for a full cast. However doing so as a solo performer is downright laudable and absolutely deserving of the standing ovation that Acushla-Tara Kupe received on opening night. Writer Suzie Miller is a former lawyer, and it’s heartening to read that despite Prima Facie being initially […]

REVIEW: Dirty Work (Indian Ink Theatre Company)

June 19, 2023

The absurdity of work is a central theme explored in Indian Ink’s new production Dirty Work which premiered on the Rangatira stage at Q Theatre last Friday night. Written by Indian Ink founders and creative collaborators Jacob Rajan & Justin Lewis, the production is inspired by Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus and explores the meaninglessness and repetitiveness that often constitute […]

REVIEW: The Tempestuous (Basement Theatre)

June 15, 2023

[Promising Pastiche] Award-winning comedian Penny Ashton has once again delved into classic texts to present their tropes in a new light. A mash-up of Shakespeare’s plays and modern-day reality TV, The Tempestuous is a funny and clever romp. Replete with cross-dressing, disguises, bawdy jokes, puns, wordplay, and musical numbers, it is an excellently written script that Shakespeare himself would be […]

REVIEW: The Haka Party Incident (Te Pou)

June 7, 2023

The Haka Party Incident explores a little-known act of resistance — when Māori activist group He Taua confronted University of Auckland engineering students about their annual tradition of performing a mock haka. For decades, Māori students and lecturers had complained about the racist caricature, which engineering students insisted was just drunken fun. But the country was in the midst of […]

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