REVIEW: Everything After (Brilliant Adventures)

July 8, 2021

[How Not to Survive a Plague] Why do some people move through the world with more ease than others? It’s something I think about a lot. A lack of trauma or baggage, I suppose. So what happens to a man who is a bundle of tightly wound trauma? Well, the expectations of dramatic narrative say we pull him apart and […]

WELLINGTON REVIEW: Cock (Brilliant Adventures)

October 20, 2019

No Exit The titillating title of the play alludes to the play’s bisexual love triangle as well as the brutal influence of cockfighting on the piece. A contemporary classic of British drama, Cock, penned by Mike Bartlett, is a taut piece of playwriting, each scene escalating towards a deliciously inevitable showdown.  Bartlett opens by dropping us right in the middle […]

REVIEW: Homos, or Everyone in America (Auckland Pride)

February 2, 2019

[Dive bombing into 21st Century Queer Relationships] In Cock by Mike Bartlett, director Shane Bosher explored the sharp edges of an intimate live-in relationship between two men. Bosher builds on this with a more focused lens in Homos, or Everyone in America by Jordan Seavey: an intense, thought-provoking production grounded in the quick-witted diatribes I’ve come to expect from Bosher’s […]

REVIEW: Venus in Fur (Auckland Theatre Company)

August 23, 2016

[Theatrically Stimulating] It turned Nina Arianda into an overnight success, her performance earning her the 2012 Tony Award for Best Actress. In 2013 it became the most produced play that year with 22 productions. And its origin is found in a 19th century German S&M novella. At least that’s how Vanda Jordan, a brazen and uncouth, yet inarguably fascinating, actress refers […]

REVIEW: Angels in America Part Two: Perestroika (Silo)

April 1, 2014

Poetry in Motion [by James Wenley] “The Great question before us is: Are we doomed? The Great question before us is: Will the Past release us? The Great question before us is: Can we Change? In Time? And we all desire that Change will come” That’s a grab quote from the start of Part Two. Alison Bruce, donning a wispy beard […]

REVIEW: Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches (Silo)

March 24, 2014

America Rediscovered [by James Wenley] It is very subtle, and depending where you are sitting, invisible. Etched onto the stage floor is one of the most famous sentences from world history: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” For his final offering as Artistic Director […]

Looking Forward: What’s on my Theatrical Radar for 2014?

January 9, 2014

Ch-ch-changes [by James Wenley] The theatrical year is starting up early, heralded by the cannon blast of 360 – A Theatre of Recollections, which takes over The Civic stage from 13 January. Audiences will have the unique opportunity to sit on the mighty stage, just big enough to fit a 360⁰ circular stage where fireworks, song, dance and a seal burst […]

REVIEW: Speaking in Tongues (Silo)

August 18, 2013

Same, but Different [by James Wenley] The harder you try to categorise Speaking in Tongues, the further the play slips away. Case in point: the content of the opening scene is the stuff of conventional dramas – in separate hotel rooms, two couplings of strangers contemplate engaging in infidelity. The tension: who will go through with it, who will back […]

REVIEW: Private Lives (Silo)

September 12, 2012

My love-hate relationship with Silo’s Private Lives [by James Wenley] Consider this plot: A newly remarried man about town books into a hotel room for his honeymoon only to discover that his ex-wife has booked the very next room for her own honeymoon. Will old sparks be reflamed? And what about their new partners? Hijinks and hilarity ensue. Sure sounds […]

PREVIEW: The Pride (Silo)

August 8, 2012

A matter of pride [by Sharu Delilkan] A heterosexual woman at the helm of a thrilling contemporary narrative predominantly focussed on the gay issues could have been a point of concern. But nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to Sophie Roberts‘ role as director for The Pride. Her history of working on productions with gay themes […]

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