REVIEW: The Sex Show (Outfit Theatre Company)

October 8, 2012

Pink, Wet, Complicated [by Rosabel Tan] When I tell a guy at work I’m going to The Sex Show, he laughs. “You’re not,” he says. He pauses. “You are.” “I am.” He looks disappointed and mildly confused. “Do you want to come?” “Not really,” he screws up his nose. “Maybe.” It’s an interesting reaction and there are plenty more to come, […]

REVIEW: The Pride (Silo)

August 14, 2012

What DOES it mean to be gay? [by Rosabel Tan] You want a play to change you. You want it to take you by surprise, to delight you, to hurt you. You want it to whisper in your ear three days later when you’re trying to focus during a staff meeting about strategy and best practice. You want it to […]

REVIEW: Black Confetti (Auckland Theatre Company)

July 7, 2012

Shivering and Shaking; The Glittery Black [by Rosabel Tan] Siggy (Kip Chapman) is the quintessential drifter. He’s spent the past seven years “finding his niche” – that is, working his way through every stage one paper offered by the Faculty of Arts – and he’d happily continue this search, only The Dean (Adam Gardiner) is now threatening to kick him […]

REVIEW: Copenhagen (TAPAC)

June 3, 2012

Physics, History, and the Atomic Bomb [by Rosabel Tan] Sometimes a play will continue to work on you long after you’ve left the theatre. I don’t mean that the memory lingers, though this happens too, but that the experience continues to grow and transform, the seed of what was planted onstage blossoming over time. A digression: Adaptation is one of […]

REVIEW: Constantinople (Comedy Festival)

May 14, 2012

An Experience Not to be Missed (And If You Did, It’s Too Late, Shame on You) [by Rosabel Tan] Crowded at the bottom of the stairs to the Wintergarden are a chorus of ladies (and a few men) in togas. As we descend, one of them kisses us on the cheek, another offers us grapes, and yet another points us […]

REVIEW: Mrs Van Gogh (Galatea Theatre)

April 22, 2012

Wikipedia for the stage [by Rosabel Tan] At the beginning of Mrs Van Gogh, Johanna Gesina Bonger (Gina Timberlake) introduces herself to the audience. I see my name does not strike a chord, she says. Perhaps you will know me better as Johanna Van Gogh – wife of Theo (Brendan Lovell), sister-in-law to Vincent (John Goudge), and one of the […]

PREVIEW: Everything Benjamin Henson said about ‘Everything She Ever Said to Me’

April 13, 2012

No rape, pillage or murder here: Just some good old-fashioned human drama. And some nudity. [by Rosabel Tan] It’s a stifling afternoon and the palms in St Kevin’s Arcade hang limply in the thick air, but Benjamin Henson appears unaffected by the heat. Hunched over a table scattered with notebooks and scripts and an empty cup of coffee, he doesn’t […]

REVIEW: Little Histories of the Life Ordinary

March 22, 2012

Getting Lost in Space [by Rosabel Tan] ‘Warning: This entire review might be a spoiler’ Little Histories of the Life Ordinary follows a girl named Frankie whose deepest desire is to travel to space. You’ll never be lonely up there, you see, and the moon is made of cabbage, so you’ll never go hungry either. Also, the Milky Way is […]

REVIEW: In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play (Auckland Theatre Company)

March 20, 2012

A Play In Need of Its Own Treatment [by Rosabel Tan] We live in an age of sexual liberation: where mutual attempts to disentangle emotional and physical expressions of love are treated as an act of empowerment – friends with benefits, no strings attached. But whether they can be separated is another question altogether, and this is a focal point […]

REVIEW: Top Girls (Silo)

February 27, 2012

You Can Be a Successful Woman, Too! (Terms and Conditions Apply) [by Rosabel Tan] When people talk about women having careers, there’s a trade-off implied: You can’t have a career and a family – one will suffer if you try, and if you pursue the former, you’re defeminised: there’s something wrong with you or, at the very least, your womb. […]