A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including: Joseph K, Crossfire, and Personae.

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: Joseph K, Crossfire, and Personae.

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

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Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre, Auckland - CROSSFIRE: Promising first draft
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

I remember the fateful day in January 2009, out in West Auckland when, following an afternoon of the inescapably relentless noise of police sirens and chopper blades it was announced that the police had accidentally shot an innocent motorist during a high-speed pursuit on the motorway.

The ramifications are still being reported in the news more than four years on. What’s more, playwright Noa Campbell was moved to write and direct a play that examines the both the political and the personal consequences of such a devastating event.

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BATS - Out Of Site - Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington - JOSEPH K: Arresting descent into surreal nightmare brilliantly realised
- reviewed by John Smythe

What we witness with Joseph K is the subjective experience of the titular character over the year beginning with his 30th birthday and ending with his 31st; known in social psychology circles as a predictable crisis in adult life. And although the crime for which he is arrested is never specified, so that neither he nor we can assess his guilt or innocence, he does – inevitably – become his own worst enemy; not simply a victim but part of the problem, impacting other lives too with his incompetence and lack of empathy.

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Hagley Open Stage, Christchurch - PERSONAE: Well realised choreographic intentions
- reviewed by Kate Sullivan

One of the most striking features of Personae is the dancer’s commitment to their performance. This is evident in their unwavering yet versatile focus which helps to explain the choreographic intention of each piece. They are able to morph from neutral to happy and change their focus from the audience to themselves or each other. This is a skill that is perhaps just as difficult as some of the aerial manoeuvres in the dances. These dancers are in this show 110%.

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - THE YETI TRILOGY: The Light Yeti Rises
- reviewed by Matt Baker

As titular immigrant Yeti, Natalie Medlock’s comedic timing and delivery is brilliant – to the extent that it is often hard to tell which lines are coming from the script and which are coming spontaneously based on the audience’s reactions. What makes her character so appealing, regardless of some of her actions, is her innocence and role as a foreigner, and her attempts to understand and incorporate the aspects of Kiwi life… mate.

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - THE YETI TRILOGY: Truly hilarious, anarchic, dizzying fun
- reviewed by Stephen Austin

What started out as a short piece in the Comedy Festival has now turned into an epic of truly lunatic proportions, as The Moving Theatre Company bring back the lovable Yeti Himalaya to tell her story with her pals for some truly mind-boggling closure.

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Mangere Arts Centre, Auckland - ROMEO AND TUSI: 1000% energy, attack and commitment
- reviewed by Johnny Givins

Romeo and Tusi takes the R&J Shakespearean masterpiece and throws out everything of value. There is no real love, real passion or real tragedy. It is a vehicle for the broadest caricature stereotypes from Porirua and South Auckland. The object is “make ’em Laugh”. This cast takes every opportunity to do so.

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Hornby High School, Christchurch - IVY – SAVIOUR OF THE DINOSAUR!: Accessible and imaginative
- reviewed by Lindsay Clark

There is nowhere you cannot go with imagination as your transport and this creative Capital E National Theatre for Children production, enterprisingly directed by Kerryn Palmer, proves the point yet again. The journey from the basement of a natural science museum somewhere to dinosaur time and place is just the beginning.

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RENDEZVOUS HOTEL, Christchurch - HOTEL: Hotel Secrets
- reviewed by Sharu Delilkan

The all-too-familiar experience began as we entered The Rendezvous Hotel to see the Christchurch Arts Festival show Hotel. We walked into the reception and spoke to the concierge who said that we would be called when the show was about to begin. What I’m referring to is all the unknowns we are confronted with when we walk into a hotel, that and the often inevitable wait before you are shown to your room.

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Court Theatre, Bernard Street, Addington, Christchurch - THE GREAT ART WAR: Art is Life
- reviewed by Sharu Delilkan

As well as the content of The Great Art War, it was the location for the production that was equally alluring. I had heard about this exceptional space – The Court Theatre – conceived, constructed and opened only weeks after the quake, so I was adamant that I was going to experience it when I came to town for the Christchurch Arts Festival.

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Rudolf Steiner School Theatre, Christchurch - THE ANIMALS & CHILDREN TOOK TO THE STREETS: Magical mayhem
- reviewed by Sharu Delilkan

The Animals and Children Took to the Streets opens with a Jetsons-like backdrop of a 1960s vision of future-opolis, but all the gritty action takes place in the arse-end of town, centered around Redherring St – a hot-bed of thieves, hookers, poverty, despair, where the only creatures that thrive are cockroaches and rodents of both the human and animal kind.

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CBS Canterbury Arena, Christchurch - THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE: Musically a triumph
- reviewed by Lindsay Clark

This favourite comic opera must have been performed in countless spaces from community centres to school assembly halls and an endless variety of theatres, but its challenge to spirit an audience away into the realms of delectable nonsense can rarely have been greater than from the cavern of the CSB arena.

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Court Theatre Pub Charity Studio, Christchurch - HUI: Tale of four brothers offers gritty slice of life
- reviewed by Alan Scott

Hui is a powerful drama, in turns engaging, intriguing, harrowing and exasperating. The story of a Maori family, who return home for their father's tangi, Hui combines moments of frank and brutal realism with magical scenes of tenderness and love to produce an account of family life which is challenging, disturbing and enthralling.

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Dorothy Winstone Theatre, Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, Auckland - VIVA ECLECTIKA: Fusion in Difference
- reviewed by Dr Linda Ashley

A crowd favourite, the Caribbean Southern Stars Steel Band with the Korean Youth Dance Group brings the house down and the band expand their comfort zones stepping out from behind their drums to join the fun of gangnam. Make no doubt about it, if you have any inclination towards letting things be that way Viva Eclectika is fun. All the groups are winners in their own ways and it looks like they were having some fun. I did not envy the judges (Iosefa Enari, Jennifer King, Susan Zhu).

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Court Theatre Pub Charity Studio, Christchurch - HUI: Memorable dramatic impacts
- reviewed by Lindsay Clark

The Forge is back in its stride, encouraging strong new theatre with its roots in Aotearoa. A Maori family, grown separate in adulthood, comes together at the death of their father, bringing with them a welter of emotional baggage which sustains the play.

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RENDEZVOUS HOTEL, Christchurch - HOTEL: Transience and melancholy
- reviewed by Erin Harrington

We enter the hotel suite as silent intruders –well, more like giggly nosy parkers – while a woman lies relaxing in the bathtub and a couple are curled up in bedroom together, asleep. Hotel invites us to spend a voyeuristic hour with the inhabitants of the room, and 15 of us sit along two of the walls of the corner suite as four unconnected stories play out.

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Playhouse, Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, Hamilton - THE HISTORY BOYS: New land gives new life to old land play
- reviewed by Gail Pittaway

I first saw The History Boys at its maiden run at the National Theatre in London in 2004 and can recall mistakenly thinking that, while it was a wonderful play and production, it was unlikely that anyone would ever try to run it in New Zealand, so steeped is it in English literature and humour, so challenging in text for contemporary actors.

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BATS - Out Of Site - Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington - THE YETI TRILOGY: Off the wall and occasionally very funny
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

The Yeti Trilogy is totally off the wall, silly, crude, determinedly non-PC, and occasionally very funny. It has been given an appropriately rough and ready production that allows the preposterous plot to develop over two hours without hindrance of such highfalutin concepts as sophistication and taste.

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The Basement Studio, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - AFTER MISS JULIE: Class warfare – in the kitchen
- reviewed by Janet McAllister

With its Swedish mix of sex, class and mind games, August Strindberg's naturalist (almost real-time) drama Miss Julie has sticking power, having inspired adaptations for 125 years. Patrick Marber's After Miss Julie transports the action to a British country house in 1945. This production, with its varied tempo and sharp dialogue, is entertaining and good value, even if it doesn't quite resonate as a refreshed classic sometimes can.

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Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland - ROTUNDA: Rotunda at Q Theatre
- reviewed by Bernadette Rae

Rotunda focuses on the life stories of World War I, in costumes of rough, ankle-buttoned khaki and the crinkly, wafty parachute silk which rationed wives stitched finely, when they could get it. But its chronology of innocence and the exhilaration of youth (beware of that twirling staff!) approaching a barely known crisis, is one that speaks in every age.

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Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland - ROTUNDA: Virtual rotunda unites modern dance and brass band music
- reviewed by Raewyn Whyte

Tipua Tigafua and Justin Haiu are the greatest of mates, the best of friends, leaders of the pack. As performers, they both have the ability to create and switch from humour to pathos in an eyeblink, and we get flashes of Tigafua’s characteristic audacity and Haiu’s astounding mimetic ability throughout the work. These two dancers have an innate sympathy with one another, with hair-trigger timing of physical interactions and reciprocal weight-sharing that allows them to flow through some extraordinary sequences of dance without seeming to even breathe a little deeper.

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Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland - ROTUNDA: Collaborative sensitivity
- reviewed by Felicity Molloy

McCullagh, her aesthetic team and nuanced dancers are making a shift for their art to speak out against the “tired legends” of chauvinism and the global, political drivel that allows for globally accepted, uncalled for pain.

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Mayfair Festival Club, 67-73 Devon St West, New Plymouth - DIE ROTEN PUNKTE: SUPERMUSICIAN: Fun, flippant, mad – a crazy hysterical ride
- reviewed by Holly Shanahan

'Die Roten Punkte' (German for 'The Red Dots') are dysfunctional 'siblings' Otto and Astrid Rot, part White Stripes, part Spinal Tap musical cabaret rock-opera, touring their Kunst Rock and family therapy comedy around the globe.

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Theatre Royal, TSB Showplace, New Plymouth - LEO: Spell-binding
- reviewed by Ngaire Riley

We see a room. One wall is red, one wall is black and the floor is turquoise. Then we see two rooms. No, it is the same room but one view of it has been turned 90 degrees so the red wall is on the floor and the turquoise floor is a wall. And we see a man. No, we see two men. Wait, it is the same man in both rooms, but how is that possible?

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Downstage Theatre, Wellington - MASS: Dancers driven along by events
- reviewed by Virginia Kennard

The imagery that remains with me has much to do with The Crucifixion: bodies hanging from walls for extended periods, splayed against white walls, somehow in suspension while traversing the surfaces against which they hang. This gives a real sense of the enduring body, damaged, in pain, especially at the times when the performers are facing towards the wall so we cannot see their faces. These are powerful motifs, chilling at times, though perhaps use of isolated, single rather than massed bodies at times could have been even more effective in building tension.

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Aurora Centre, Christchurch - LIVE AT SIX: Lively, well-paced and delivered with wit and precision
- reviewed by Erin Harrington

The competing newsrooms engage in threats, lies, picketing and gutter journalism as they try to capitalise on Jane’s sloppy night out. The characters navigate the perils of being married to the job and the ubiquity of digital media, the tension between ‘real news’ (should there be such a thing) and tabloid muck-raking, the cult of personality and the pitfalls of self-promotion, and the cultural divide between Auckland and the “coat-wearing provinces”.

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Glen Eden Playhouse, Auckland - ON THE UPSIDE-DOWN OF THE WORLD: Moving, thought provoking, still relevant
- reviewed by Candice Lewis

During a particularly heart breaking moment in the play I cry so hard that I wish I had some tissues with me. Devenie’s performance really shines in the soft and quiet transitional moments; the times when she reflects on how she enjoys the bustling trade in her bay, or when she leans back into a ‘ladder’ to consider the bliss of loving her husband, and of course when she considers “Sancho”.

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Globe Theatre, Dunedin - THE UNEXPECTED MAN: Observational and experiential
- reviewed by Patrick Davies

“The famous author goes on a journey and sits opposite an unknown woman who’s reading his latest book. Good subject for a short story,” says train passenger Paul Parksy. Great subject for a play, I say.

Yasmin Reza’s 1995 play (translated from the French by Christopher Hampton) is a rhapsody on the travelling inner monologue. Even if we haven’t fantasised about receiving an award (I know of no actor who will not secretly admit to this) or giving an in-depth interview to the latest headlining columnist, we have all indulged in imagining the world of others when travelling.

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Rudolf Steiner School Theatre, Christchurch - THE ANIMALS & CHILDREN TOOK TO THE STREETS: Distracted by its own inter-media brilliance
- reviewed by Elizabeth O’Connor

Extraordinary projector-screened backgrounds of windows, walls, constant cockroaches crawling and children rioting, etc, frame three articulate actors, telling a dark tale. The interaction of live actors with screened image is superlative, and is the main achievement of this production.

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

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