The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The War Play, Greedy Cat, and Grand Opening.

See more recent reviews at theatreview.org, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory

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The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The War Play, Greedy Cat, and Grand Opening.

See more recent reviews at theatreview.org, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory

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YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE A NATURAL WOMAN: Not so much a tour-de-force as a jaunt-de-strongly-suggest
The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

It’s not so much amazing, out-there, blow-your-mind, concept-driven hijinx as a frank personal expose of her experience as a member of the female gender. Nevertheless, in her monologue following the amusing and edifying introductory song about beginning to “feel like the thing that I actually am,” she talks up the ensuing hour (just on 45 minutes actually) like it’s somehow deeply relevant and ground-breaking.

It isn’t, of course, and that, of course, is the joke.

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TASSEL ME THIS: Spectassular
The Open Stage, Hagley Community College, Christchurch
- reviewed by Sheree Bright

A contemporary sequence skilfully performed and set to the 80s synthpop ballad ‘Take My Breath Away’, effectively utilises a giant fan. One of the dancers, with measured control, pours glitter in front of the fan, which disperses it over the dancers and across the stage. While the movement itself is entertaining, it is the combination of movement with set and lighting design, props and the exploration into the subject matter that gives Tassel Me This its entertaining and glitzy edge.

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THE WAR PLAY: War’s dilemmas dramatised as naive beliefs challenged
Fortune Theatre, Dunedin
- reviewed by Barbara Frame

Playwright Philip Braithwaite parallels his great-uncle Jack’s story with his own quest to find out what really happened in an episode of family history generally understood to be shameful, but whose details were until recently not fully known.

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THE WAR PLAY: Heart-wrenching and intensely thought provoking
Fortune Theatre, Dunedin
- reviewed by Brenda Harwood

Exploring the terrible wartime experiences of an increasingly bewildered Jack Braithwaite and his young comrades, The War Play also highlights how the perceived shame of his actions and the horror of his fate resonated in his family for generations.

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GREEDY CAT: Bray’s best
The Pumphouse, Takapuna, Auckland
- reviewed by Lexie Matheson

Finding a serious protagonist isn’t always the simplest of tasks when adapting kids’ fiction, especially if the characters happen to be animals or fantasticals but in this account Bray makes the profoundly plump puss fulfil this role without affecting our unbridled love of the mischievous moggy.

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THE ROYAL NZ BALLET PRESENTS DON QUIXOTE: Lucid and charming re-telling
ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland
- reviewed by Bernadette Rae

And then there is the dancing! This Don Q is a love story at heart, and the svelte and quicksilver Kohei Iwamoto, as Basilio, and a dynamic and wonderfully flirtatious Mayu Tanigaito, as Kitri, present a partnership of lovely lightness and lyrical lift. They fly through the technical challenges of their roles with passion and precision and culminate their performance with a breathtaking wedding pas de deux in act three.

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BBEALS: A MYSTIQUE OF MAYHEM, WITH HUMOUR
Opera House, Wellington
- reviewed by Chris Jannides

There is much in this show that the audience enjoys immensely. It is clear people want a laugh from the get-go. So these happiness wishes are well catered to. Water splashes on us from some hidden source, titillating us as the house lights dim. Dialogue made up of well-known lines from pop songs receives a joyous response. A cacophony of animal impersonations provokes much merriment. A small female dancer looking helplessly up at the microphone on a stand that is too high for her - more giggles. We all love humour in dance. The audience welcomes the laughs, and laughs as often as it can.

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ALL YOUR WANTS AND NEEDS FULFILLED FOREVER: Compelling evidence of The Playground Collective’s original vision
La Mama, Ellen Stewart Theatre, 66 E. 4th St, NYC, USA
- reviewed by Sarah Burrell

The Playground Collective’s latest creation, All Your Wants and Needs Fulfilled Forever, is not easily explained, which is part of what makes it such compelling viewing. It defies both definition and expectation.

At the heart of the story is Simon, a young man living in Aro Valley recovering from the recent death of his father and dealing with his girlfriend moving overseas. But that is just one of the production’s many layers; if we step back a bit Simon’s story is just part a bigger narrative.

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ROTUNDA 2015 AUSTRALASIAN TOUR: Very touching
Air Force Museum, Christchurch
- reviewed by Sheree Bright

As the mood changes, the brass band plays an old contemplative anthem. Gareth Okan goes upside down in a shoulder stand; it is a backwards and upside down world. He has lost his mind. Hannah Tasker-Poland tries desperately to bring him back to her. Forsythe's ‘line extrusion’ technique is used here to enhance the depth of meaning. When broken-hearted by the trauma of the loss of her beloved, she slowly, movingly draws out an imaginary line from her heart. Rotunda significantly and beautifully expresses the voices of the women of war, the uncertainty of separation, the unbearable worry, longing, loss and the optimistic determination of recovery.

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GRAND OPENING: Engaging grumpy kids is doing something right
Opera House, Wellington
- reviewed by Shannon Friday

Grand Opening, an interactive show produced by Barbarian Productions, is basically a tour of the Opera House. Instead of seeing an empty space and being told about its history, we see artists and technicians at work. And we're encouraged to think not only about the space, but also about our guides, our partners in the tour and all the myriad people who work here ...

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ROTUNDA 2015 AUSTRALASIAN TOUR: Metaphoric frame
Air Force Museum, Christchurch
- reviewed by Ian Lochhead

The horror of battle is conveyed with visceral intensity through projected images and tortured, silhouetted bodies, set against a soundscape of deafening intensity. A moving duo between a living and a dead soldier follows this mayhem, the peace and serenity of the victim contrasting with the anguish and guilt of the survivor.

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THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: A wild, funny and frivolous spectacle
Circa One, Wellington
- reviewed by Jonathan Kingston-Smith and Pepe Becker

There are, in fact, many mysteries in this tale of Edwin Drood and the cast of lechers, 'exotics', opium-dealers, Classical singers, clergymen and general miscreants that surround 'him'. Not least of all is the one intrinsic to the work itself. This musical is based upon Charles Dickens' final novel. Unfortunately Dickens did something really inconvenient for literary history before he set pen to paper on the final pages of this manuscript ...

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LET IT BE: A Twist and Shout down memory lane
Civic Theatre, Auckland
- reviewed by Dione Joseph

Team up some of the world’s best actors and musicians (including a left-handed guitar player) who have passing resemblances to the four youngsters from Liverpool, unearth some Beatlemania footage including swooning girls from Shea Stadium, intersperse these with some flower-power tunes, trippy graphics and advertisements for highly carcinogenic stimulants, and you have a facsimile of one of the world’s best bands providing hit after hit after hit for almost two solid hours.

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THE ROYAL NZ BALLET PRESENTS DON QUIXOTE: Spanish escapism and fabulous dancing
ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland
- reviewed by Rosemary Martin

The ballet is strongly based on the dynamics between the lead couple – Kitri and Basilio. Mayu Tanigaito as Kitri and Kohei Iwamoto as Basilio provide us with outstanding chemistry and virtuosic style. If there ever was a time for all the ‘flashy’ dance moves to come out – high extensions, flying jetes, lengthy balances, pirouettes in every which way – Don Quixote is it. Tanigaito and Iwamoto pull out all the stops. While there were a few moments in the act three grand pas de deux where things went ever so slightly astray they remained composed and a joy to watch.

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See more recent reviews at theatreview.org.nz, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory

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