A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including: White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, Yes, Prime Minister, and Nick: An Accidental Hero.
See more recent reviews at theatreview.org, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory.
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A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including: White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, Yes, Prime Minister, and Nick: An Accidental Hero.
See more recent reviews at theatreview.org, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory.
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Opera House, Wellington - YES, PRIME MINISTER: A timely reminder
- reviewed by John Smythe
From within the quaintly old-fashioned stage conventions of the well-made ‘drawing room comedy’, wherein the actors pace and pose and deliver their key lines full-frontally in declamatory voices, a ripping political satire bursts forth.
This is not a nostalgic revisiting of the 1980s BBC TV series. The time is now, the issues are contemporary and this cast of Australians plus one Kiwi – each with an impressive list credits behind them – take the roles unto themselves with relish.
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Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland - WHITE RABBIT, RED RABBIT: Intriguing show pulled anew from actors' hats
- reviewed by Janet McAllister
Oliver Driver, Rima Te Wiata and a dozen other actors aren't allowed to read this review. They are yet to act in this Silo production, and they are to arrive on stage alone, for one night only each, without any prior knowledge of the slim, intriguing 70-minute script.
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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - NICK: AN ACCIDENTAL HERO: Success is no accident
- reviewed by Matt Baker
The result is a testament to Lyons’ abilities as an actress, as she not only creates her characters with complete vocal and physical particularisations, but also is able to fully encompass their emotionality, whether it is utter heartbreak, or absolute love. That being said, this is not a sad show. It is an absolute laugh-out-loud comedy.
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BATS - Out Of Site - Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington - A PLAY ABOUT SPACE: A romp
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson
On a stage filled with reading lamps (fast becoming something of a theatrical cliché), standard lamps, and an electric fan that is a computer, A Play about Space takes us into the distant future when the Human/Zorgon Alliance’s Interstellar War is coming to an end.
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Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland - WHITE RABBIT, RED RABBIT: An experience well worth having
- reviewed by Heidi North-Bailey
It’s difficult to review a piece that is best experienced with just the barest of prior knowledge. In White Rabbit Red Rabbit, like the actor on stage, the audience is asked to take a great leap into the dark. There is just the barest of set, two water glasses and three ladders. There is no lighting to speak of, no artifice.
The actor walks onto the stage is and handed the script for the first time in a sealed envelope. Their only prior knowledge of what will befall them is being asked, 48 hours before coming on stage, to prepare an animal impersonation.
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Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland - WHITE RABBIT, RED RABBIT: Shh… don’t tell anyone
- reviewed by Sharu Delilkan
Sometimes the fact that a play makes you think, can be as important as what you actually think about the play itself. This for me was the case with Silo Theatre’s latest production White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, written by young Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour.
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BATS Out Of Site - return season, Wellington - A PLAY ABOUT SPACE: Watch the wacky staging
- reviewed by John Smythe
If you are an outer space sci fi nut who also enjoys being taken ‘out of this world’ by ingeniously simple theatricality, A Play About Space is a ‘must-see’ for you.
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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - NICK: AN ACCIDENTAL HERO: Triumphant performance amusing and moving
- reviewed by Bronwyn Elsmore
Renee Lyons says she didn’t go to acting school till her late twenties. She doesn’t look much more than that now, but it’s obviously been time enough to perfect her craft. Her performance in Nick: An Accidental Hero is a triumph.
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Allen Hall Theatre, Dunedin - PICCOLO COR (2013): Joy, faith and simple pleasure
- reviewed by Hannah Molloy
I couldn’t decide which was my favourite part – the simplicity and vulnerability of the performers rolling across the stage, embracing the solidity of the earth under them, supporting their existence, or what I have now dubbed ‘the frog dance’ with its exuberance and acceptance of human fallibility and need at the end. Ryl Harris was exquisite to watch. Her generosity of movement and perfect awareness of her body, and, by extension, of her own self, was glorious.
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Court Theatre, Bernard Street, Addington, Christchurch - KINGS OF THE GYM: Milked for all it's worth
- reviewed by Alan Scott
I am not sure what the Physical Education fraternity would have thought about this comedy, but judging by the comments I overheard, other teachers in the audience were certainly enjoying it. Indeed, the production was warmly received by everyone.
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Regent Theatre, Dunedin - K'RD STRIP: A PLACE TO STAND: More wistful melancholy than joy
- reviewed by Jonathan W. Marshall
Like so many of these urban meeting places of outsiders, supposed ‘deviants’, and those seeking sex on a variety of terms, K’ Road has been increasingly gentrified and cleaned up since these wild, dark days. One might perhaps, then, have expected a nostalgic journey back into an age of outrageous queerness and sexuality, but Okareka resolutely shatter any rose tinted glasses one might want to wear.
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TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland - ODYSSEY: Young stars shine on an entertaining Odyssey
- reviewed by Janet McAllister
What an inspired idea, devising a staging of The Odyssey with teenagers and children. Such a rich story with so many islands and one-episode characters gives everyone a chance to shine, and in between times, it's all hands on deck as an ever-morphing chorus of sailors, warriors and handmaidens.
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Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, The Edge, Auckland - SHORT+SWEET 2013 – SONG & THEATRE GALA FINAL: Perky, intriguing, pacey, clever, macabre, mythical, tumultuous, lame, cheesy, necessary
- reviewed by Kate Ward-Smythe
Love, death, marriage, religion, national identity, personal identity, an actor’s head-space and ninjas, are the motivating forces for writers of this year’s Short + Sweet, Theatre and Song finalists. [RESULTS INCLUDED.]
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Centrestage, Orewa, Auckland - GLORIA: A first class treat of imagination
- reviewed by Adey Ramsel
Gloria Stanford did wartime service in the Auckland she grew up in and married a GI, Charles. On his demob she, and a gaggle of others GI brides, were shipped to the US to be reunited with their husbands. Gloria, though, refused to go.
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Court Theatre, Bernard Street, Addington, Christchurch - KINGS OF THE GYM: Richly comedic
- reviewed by Lindsay Clark
Director Conrad Newport shapes the play from a plethora of loaded comment and riposte, bubbling away around a neatly contrived plot line. The most entertaining aspect lies in the banter arising from conflicting beliefs and the jockeying for power between the Head and her stubbornly non PC colleague. Spontaneous applause more than once confirms how readily the audience agrees with both sides!
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TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland - ODYSSEY: Tight, cohesive tale of literally epic proportions
- reviewed by Nik Smythe
The sheer size and diversity of this kind of large-scale ensemble production poses a real challenge: how to successfully marry the myriad elements of a classical epic told in eclectic music and song, chorus work, physical theatre/slapstick comedy, anachronistic metaphor, farce, and emphatic melodrama? As directed by Devenie and Maudlin, the various levels are never excessively tipped in any direction and the whole melee fuses together to issue forth an essentially tight, cohesive tale of literally epic proportions.
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Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland - THE PITCHFORK DISNEY: Inspired production of playful thriller highly rewarding
- reviewed by Janet McAllister
This excellent production is a slug of rich, complex whisky on a dark and stormy night. Come up the stairs, where the ripped wallpaper has been graffitied by disturbed, creative minds, and take your shabby seat in the musty house of twins Presley (an assured Todd Emerson) and Hayley.
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Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, The Edge, Auckland - SHORT+SWEET 2013 – THEATRE – WEEK 2: Diverse line-up ranges from macabre to a bit of whimsy
- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton
Everything from slice-of-life realism through to surrealistic flights of fancy are on display in the second week of the Short+Sweet Festival. The pressure-cooker intensity of a 10-minute time limit has stirred up an outpouring of creative energy that covers a rich variety of theatrical forms.
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Downstage Theatre, Wellington - SYDNEY BRIDGE UPSIDE DOWN: Play a rare beast, joy to watch
- reviewed by Michaela Manley
Director James Ashcroft writes on Taki Rua's website that his desire to adapt David Ballantyne's novel for the stage arose from a personal connection to his own childhood experiences. He invites us to a live conversation between Ballantyne and the art of theatre.
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See more recent reviews at theatreview.org.nz, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory
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