The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of Kurawaka, Y Chromozone, and Game of Chance.

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

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The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of Kurawaka, Y Chromozone, and Game of Chance.

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

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THE STORY CABARET: A satisfying and diverse little adventure
BATS Theatre, The Propeller Stage, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
- reviewed by Lena Fransham

This story cabaret is a place where mythological creatures tell stories based on the virtues. The virtue from which each story springs is determined in a pick-a-card ritual conducted by our host, Unicorn (Derek Flores) with random audience members.

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Y CHROMOZONE (2015): Significant dance for entertainment's sake
Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland
- reviewed by Camelle Pink

The Dust Palace tackle some hefty subjects in Derezzed and The Adonis Complex. Both pieces deserve an essay written on how they unpack their concepts around the masculine self and what defines masculinity. There is definite potential in Derezzed to delve into the theory by Donna Harraway (1991), however it satisfies with a spinning spectacle of light and action. Human movement layered with screen projection adds another layer to this cyborg-like performance. The Adonis Complex invites the audience to see these muscular women as they perform, and challenges us to see them doing strength tasks that are a display of paradoxically gendered actions.

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FRESH (2015): Shining a light on developing works
Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland
- reviewed by Raewyn Whyte

The orange light cycles through an array of other lighting states during Company of Another, choreographed by Katie Rudd (NZ Dance Company) and performed by her with fellow company member Chris Ofonoa. It's not so much what they do in this very abstract work that makes it so very satisfying to watch - rise and fall and drop and roll and pace and spin and balance and all the usuall kinds of material such dances expplore. , it's the wonderfully flowing, attentive quality of the movement which draws you in and carries you with them, riding on quietly repetitive rhythms of Brandon Wolcott & Emil Abrayam, and spacy, multilayered tones of Gustavo Santaollalla.

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GAME OF CHANCE: Interactive fun for those scared of interaction
BATS Theatre, The Dome, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
- reviewed by Patrick Davies

Board game based improv has been around for a while and it’s always fun to see each iteration. This Game of Chance is monopoly based really: the teams of two roll a dice and move their piece along the audience row and where it stops, the said patron issues a challenge or can opt to use the pile of chance cards.

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THE ROYAL EQUINOX ADVENTURE CRUISE: Lost in complexity
BATS Theatre, The Propeller Stage, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
- reviewed by John Smythe

This year’s NZ Improv Festival at BATS Theatre features twenty shows in five days; twenty entirely different formats! Participants hail from Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin, Melbourne and Sydney. BATS is abuzz with expectant punters.

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AMPUTATION OF PERSONALITY: Emotionally complex, aesthetically accomplished
Hagley Open Stage, Christchurch
- reviewed by Erin Harrington

This is a beautifully expressed piece that makes good use of its sparse set, lighting and props. Flat white walls, upon which an empty frame hangs, create a sense of isolation, and as Bate enters, dragging her chair and a suitcase filled with mementoes, she casts large shadows across this private grief-space. The chair itself, which is a proxy for lover and his absence, is often illuminated from above, and Bate’s movements circle around it as she yearns for, clutches at and rages against the implacable, invisible other.

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MITIMITI: Connections, reciprocities, responsibilities, reverberations
Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland
- reviewed by Jacqueline Shea Murphy

As ritual, performance, happening, Mitimiti continues from the temporal space of this past week in Q Theatre, in all its sensory assaults and playful interactions, in ripples that started who knows when and are still happening. The show offers its dancers, collaborators and audience members recognition of the pain, turmoil, disconnection and loss of colonization – and at the same time, powerfully brings into form, and strengthens, ways of being, acting, knowing and perceiving that supercede those histories.

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NATIONAL SHAKESPEARE SCHOOLS PRODUCTION 2015: A formative and valuable experience
Legislative Council Chamber, Parliament House, Wellington
- reviewed by John Smythe

Given the 48 high school students* selected to participate in this year’s Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand (SGCNZ) National Shakespeare Schools Production (NSSP) arose from a pool of well over 5,000 participants nationwide in this year’s SGCNZ University of Otago Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival, Theatreview feels it’s appropriate to note this annual event.

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MITIMITI: Medicine making in the story circle
Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland
- reviewed by Dione Joseph

Alive, vibrant and dynamic the work is still moving, developing and finding new moments in which to keep reaching out and connecting to its audiences. The braids of knowledge are still being woven from our various grandmothers and grandfathers and the vocabulary will continue to grow over time. The signatures of the various artists and collaborators all contribute towards creating a contemporary and unequivocally Indigenous response to the land and the people with whom these stories are shared.

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(RE)BUILD (USA/NZ): Honouring the process of recovery
Next to Gym, Christchurch Arts Centre, Christchurch
- reviewed by Emily Napolitano

As a site specific piece, the choreography makes use of outdoor structures as well as finding inspiration from artwork discovered inside the damaged Arts Centre. It is thoughtful, unhurried and sincere. The separate pieces merge into each other while moving between whole company performances and duets. The Hagley Dance Company members are young and enthusiastic, and clearly enjoyed their week of intensive workshops. As co-creators, they get to play to their strengths, and one dancer in particular, Isaiah Thornton, is able to make effective use of his acrobatic skills.

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KURAWAKA: Contemporary approach adds new layers to traditional narrative
Middleton Grange School Performing Arts Centre, Christchurch
- reviewed by Julia Harvie

There is no doubt that Huwaiki TU as a company have incredible integrity, passion and dedication to every aspect of their practice and their strengths absolutely lie in the traditional forms. The strength of karakia, haka, waiata, taonga puoro and mau raukau are undeniable. Kurawaka is moving, intrinsically aesthetically appealing, and in many ways, for any non-Maori speaker in the audience, visually and theatrically abstract.

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MITIMITI: A feeling experience, rather than a thinking one
Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland
- reviewed by Bernadette Rae

Dancers emerge and vanish through several portals, and the choreography of solos and partnerships spins and lunges around the huge central circle. Images of oceans and forests play out on a series of overhead sails.

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MITIMITI: Mitimiti - a collaboration of indigenous voices
Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland
- reviewed by Tia Reihana-Morunga

Belonging and themes of place and knowing are undercurrents of Mitimiti that places performer and audience together in states of exploration. Once settled, the dancers withdraw warmly as we the manuhiri, the guests, remain still abuzz with anticipation, energy, in what is, or, may come.

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THE FALLEN MYSTERY: Chiaroscuro nightmare
Hagley Open Stage, Christchurch
- reviewed by Erin Harrington

The geometric movement, which takes good advantage of the broad, empty black box of The Open Stage’s performance space, is wonderfully eerie and uncanny, from the dancers’ steely glares, to their shifts in identity and gender, to the sense that violence is thrumming just beneath the surface of the angular, often constrained movements. It feels like I’m watching a film that’s playing out of sync, so that the horror is as much in the gaps and scratches as it is in the narrative itself.

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THE GENIE, THE LAMP AND ALADDIN: Engages and involves the young
Gryphon, Wellington
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

When Aladdin (Richard Dasan), known as Al, finds an old lamp which he rubs the inevitable Genie (Benjamin Haddock) materialises, effectively done in this production.

A very genial Genie, he grants Al three wishes. But ...

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THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA: Slick, confident and lively
4 Moncrieff St., Mt. Victoria, Wellington
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

Anyone who enjoys gardening knows the pleasure of getting amongst the plants and making them grow but also the disappointment when they don’t. This is Prince Geranium’s dilemma in KidzStuff Theatre for Children’s school holiday show The Princess and the Pea.

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HIRAETH: Compelling retelling of old tale
BATS Theatre, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

Known for bringing local madcap shows like Live At Six to the stage, production company Show Pony now have an imported play on tour, from Wales, Hiraeth, that’s just as off the wall as many of their previous productions.

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THE BOOKBINDER: Fascinates young and old alike
Circa Two, Wellington
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

Having started life in the backroom of a bookshop during the 2014 Fringe Festival, Ralph McCubbin Howell and Hannah Smith’s fascinating and spellbinding play, The Bookbinder, has been performed in numerous cities across the globe, including the Edinburgh Festival, before arriving back in Wellington for a return season.

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THE QUIET ROOM: Emotional rollercoaster sensitively captured
BATS Theatre, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

The greatest anguish for any parent come when their child falls sick. But when the illness is terminal then this becomes intensified, almost beyond belief. How do they deal with it, how does the child cope and what of the carers, the doctors involved in treating the illness?

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MANIFESTO 2083: A challenging openness
Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
- reviewed by Janet McAllister

At the start of this intellectually confronting and complex one-man play, Olaf Hojgaard (Edwin Wright) tells us he was watching the 2011 Tour de France telecast when he first heard about Anders Behring Breivik's politically-motivated murder of 77 people in 80 minutes in Norway: "I saw a bike race, cycling pundits and a growing body count."

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MANIFESTO 2083: Resistance
Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
- reviewed by James Wenley

About half-way through Manifesto 2083, actor Edwin Wright, playing actor Olaf Højgaard, begins to chuckle. “Was this your goal?” he asks the image of Anders Behring Brevik, attached to a pinboard behind him.

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ANIMAL FARM: Could be worth a visit
Gryphon, Wellington
- reviewed by John Smythe

Much more of the individual and group psychology could be explored, however, to engage us in a vicarious experience of the socio-political syndromes we are all susceptible to. Despite being asked to recite the mantra “Four legs good; two legs bad”, we remain objective observers, never seduced by idealism, charisma or peer-group pressure.

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HIRAETH: A wonderful little play
Luggate Memorial Hall, Wanaka
- reviewed by Pip Harker

This is the sweet, funny, slightly sad, extremely personal true-story of young Welsh woman Buddug James Jones as she takes the huge step of leaving her tiny hometown of Newcastle Emlyn to bravely set out into the big wide world (London) to go to University.

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

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