REVIEW: Scenes from a Yellow Peril (Auckland Theatre Company)

June 26, 2022

Funneling Rage into Art Written by award-winning Chinese Kiwi playwright and poet Nathan Joe and directed by Jane Yonge with dramaturgy by Ahi Karunaharan, Scenes from a Yellow Peril is a show about the everyday racism East Asian New Zealanders experience in Aotearoa. Part performance poetry, part political commentary, part story telling, part confessional, Scenes from a Yellow Peril confronts […]

REVIEW: Yang/Young/杨 (Auckland Theatre Company)

July 26, 2021

[More than a Youth Show] In 2019 I wrote a review which included a meme that intimated that the ATC youth shows excite me more as an audience member than much of what appears in the main programme. Now in 2021 ATC, with the support of Proudly Asian Theatre (PAT), offers Yang/Young/杨 as part of the Here and Now season […]

REVIEW: 48 Nights on Hope Street (Auckland Theatre Company)

September 17, 2020

[Hope abounds, the theatre is alive] 48 Nights on Hope Street is a triumphant addition to an anthological tradition.  Drawing on Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, Auckland Theatre Company has brought together the works of five talented young writers, Freya Daly Sadgrove, Leki Jackson-Bourke, Nathan Joe, Ana Scotney, and Cian Elyse White.  Set during the Black Death epidemic, the Decameron is a story cycle […]

REVIEW: I am Rachel Chu (Basement Theatre)

August 10, 2019

Here’s looking at you, Rachel Chu I Am Rachel Chu is a pleasure to watch. It is perfectly pitched for The Basement but has the ambition to travel further and spread the ‘crazy’ young Asian vibe that brings enjoyment, enlightenment and encouragement to anyone lucky enough to experience this fun-filled production. Taking inspiration from the book and film Crazy Rich […]

REVIEW: I am Rachel Chu (Auckland Fringe)

February 21, 2019

[Will the real Rachel Chu please stand up?] Co-created and performed by Nathan Joe, Amanda Grace Leo, Ravi Lloyd Gurunathan and Angela Zhang, I am Rachel Chu is a parody, critical response, and humorous ‘rewrite’ of the story of Rachel Chu — the heroine from the Hollywood blockbuster and bestselling novel Crazy Rich Asians. Described as an attempt ‘to liberate […]

REVIEW: Legacy Project Year Two (Auckland Fringe & Auckland Pride)

February 12, 2015

May the legacy continue [by Sharu Delilkan] Having not seen the Legacy Project‘s inaugural outing at the last Pride Festival, I am unable to make any comparative commentary. However that doesn’t mean that I don’t have an opinion about the works that were presented at this year’s showing. The six plays were a good mixture of personal, heartfelt stories. And […]