REVIEW: Tea For Two Valentine’s Special (Loft at Q)

February 21, 2024

What an absolute treat it was to see Tea For Two Valentine’s Special. I arrived early at the Loft at Q Theatre and found a seat front and centre, only then realising that I was at a Valentine’s show by myself. Theatre goers file in and decide to leave a number of conspicuously empty seats around me. The one woman […]

REVIEW: Heartbreak Hotel (Q Theatre)

November 30, 2023

[Find Some Room For Broken Hearted Lovers] Take a walk down Lonely Street to Heartbreak Hotel at the Q Theatre, the latest creative venture by Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken.  It’s hard to know what to expect when you arrive at the Heartbreak Hotel. When our hotelier and host (Karin McCracken) comes on stage in a bedazzled lilac suit, backed […]

REVIEW: Skin Hunger (Q Theatre)

November 8, 2023

[Like a Prayer] Grief, masturbation, and the catholic church – the holy trinity of Tatiana Hotere’s Skin Hunger, a one woman show that explores life after the death of a spouse and how grief can make you unexpectedly horny. Returning to Q theatre after a sell-out season earlier this year, the show has been reimagined — transformed from a three […]

REVIEW: Boom Shankar (Matchbox 2023)

September 14, 2023

Boom Shankar is a delightfully silly and immensely creative piece, which explores and subverts ideas around love and death. The play follows Shankar Shinde, an overconfident and arrogant bomb defusal expert, and Murray Murray, an overworked but conscientious bureaucrat in heaven. Writers and performers, Bala Murali Shingade and Aman Bajaj, must be commended for creating and embodying such complex and […]

REVIEW: Moe Miti (Red Leap Theatre)

August 30, 2023

[Dream Sleep] Moe Miti, presented by Red Leap Theatre, beautifully conjures a liminal space – not quite real, not quite unreal – and explores within it the complex relationship one has to one’s past and identity. It manages to tell a nuanced and unique story about intergenerational trauma with very little narrative. It is at once specific and universal. Director […]

REVIEW: Losing Face (Matchbox 2023)

August 16, 2023

Nathan Joe’s latest play, Losing Face, successfully blends elements of sci-fi and holiday movies into a forceful and captivating study of the human heart. The project was originally developed under the title Flesh off the Boat as part of Playmarket’s Asian Ink Clinic in 2013 and the revisiting proves rewarding.  We meet Mark (Andrew Ford) on Christmas Eve as he […]

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 Savage Coloniser Show (Auckland Arts Festival)

March 20, 2023

Poetry and theatre lovers alike have been eagerly awaiting Tusiata Avia’s The Savage Coloniser Show to grace the stage. The Savage Coloniser Book is the second book of poetry by Avia to be transformed into an ensemble stage play since the award winning Wild Dogs Under My Skirt. Both shows have been produced by Victor Rodger (F.C.C) and directed by […]

REVIEW: The Mourning After (Agaram Productions)

July 27, 2021

[After the Mourning, Comes… ] Originally produced thirteen years ago by playwright and director Ahi Karunaharan, The Mourning After is a semi-autobiographical tale of what happens when the protagonist Shekar (Jehangir Homavazir) leaves New Zealand to visit his ancestral homeland of Sri Lanka in order to return his father’s ashes.  As we enter Q’s foyer, kind faces encourage us to […]

REVIEW: Ghost Trees (Auckland Fringe)

February 28, 2020

[A Sombre Analysis of A Declining World] Gary Stalker’s original play Ghost Trees traces the story of the protagonist’s loss of a partner to cancer and the pursuit of meaning in a rapidly-deteriorating world.  It speaks to the bewildering silence of humanity in response to species extinction exacerbated by climate change, and the augmented feeling of isolation that hounds us as […]

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