The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of The Mountebank, Out of Our Heads, Short + Sweet Song 2014, and Mamil: Middle Aged Man in Lycra.

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 Mountebank, Out of Our Heads, Short + Sweet Song 2014, and Mamil: Middle Aged Man in Lycra.

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

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OUT OF OUR HEADS: Impressive diversity
The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

This week six emerging theatre writers from Gary Henderson’s Graduate Studio flex their skills to produce a selection of plays of varying length and content. So they can fully experience and understand the whole process, the playwrights themselves have organised their cast and crew for each of the seven diverse pieces. This is a review of the first three plays.

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RIDDIFORD STREET: SEASON THREE: A riveting experience
BATS Theatre (Out Of Site), Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington
- reviewed by John Smythe

Theatreview didn’t get to Season One but we did cover the opening episode of Season Two in last year’s Fringe. A rotating cast of 16 peopled the improvised hospital soap-opera then but the ‘Previously on Riddiford Street’ segment that opens Season Three reveals most of them died from some mysterious plague. So now a tight team of six plays 12 characters – with alacrity.

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SHORT + SWEET SONG 2014: Sweet & sour selection
TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland
- reviewed by Kathryn van Beek

The Short + Sweet Festival 2014 has already given us ten-minute plays. This week it’s giving us ten-minute musicals (and next week, ten-minute dance works). On the way to TAPAC we wondered what horrors and delights might await us. As it turns out, there are plenty of both in Short + Sweet Song, which features nine musicals by different writers, composers and actors

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MAMIL: MIDDLE AGED MAN IN LYCRA: Hadlow gets on his bike in must-see show
Prefab Hall, 14 Jessie Street (access also from Vivian St), Wellington
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

In the role of Bryan Cook, Hadlow is superb. Twenty years on he has lost none of the spark, verve, and animation be brought to SNAG, bounding about what little space there is on the restricted set with great vitally and commanding engagement.

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THE MOUNTEBANK: An audience left mystified – and not in a good way
109 Dixon Street, Wellington
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

Devised works have become the norm for Long Cloud Youth Theatre’s annual production and while last year’s show had some semblance of cohesiveness and worked reasonably well as a piece of theatre, this year’s production is far less so and much more esoteric and self-indulgent.

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TREES BENEATH THE LAKE: Big themes, big drama, big laughs
Maidment, Auckland
- reviewed by James Wenley

Thirty years ago the Campbell family lost a fierce fight against the Clutha Dam development in Central Otago, and their family home and orchards were flooded in the name of progress. It bred a family legacy and a steely mistrust of the government. Now the family have reunited on the shores of Lake Dunstan ...

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SHORT + SWEET THEATRE 2014 GALA FINAL: All 12 give something of value
TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland
- reviewed by Candice Lewis

My top picks are Call of the Sparrows and Leo Rising, though I certainly got something from every single ten minute taste.

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TREES BENEATH THE LAKE: Rural take on dodgy deals
Maidment, Auckland
- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton

The fraudulent world of high finance has furnished plenty of high-stakes drama in recent years but the quintessentially Kiwi protagonist of Arthur Meek's new play is a far cry from the Wolf of Wall Street. His self-effacing cunning might earn him a modest notoriety as the Weasel of Clutha Valley.

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TREES BENEATH THE LAKE: Laughs a-plenty, tears lacking
Maidment, Auckland
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

The world-premiere of a new work by somewhere-between-emerging-and-established local playwright Arthur Meek explores issues across the spectrum of modern life, from struggling individuals to the mighty yet fragile world economy.

Centred on a small family reuniting after a long time apart in Lowburn, Central Otago, they recall their historical battle with the government decades before over the construction of Clyde Dam ...

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YOU CAN ALWAYS HAND THEM BACK: Fun, poignancy and familiar wisdoms
Court Theatre, Bernard Street, Addington, Christchurch
- reviewed by Lindsay Clark

He is described in the programme as ‘the postman of New Zealand theatre’, on the grounds that he always delivers the goods. To extend the image, one could say Roger Hall is also spot on when it comes to selecting the post to engage with and appeal to his middle class recipients, in this case probably those in their ‘golden years’.

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MARX IN SOHO – A PLAY ON HISTORY: "I can’t stress enough how valuable this show is"
BATS Theatre (Out Of Site), Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington
- reviewed by Phoebe Smith

Anya Tate-Manning’s performance simultaneously induces in one a frustrated desire to have had the opportunity to truly listen to Marx speak and also a gratitude for the opportunity to see and hear him in her guise. She portrays somebody honest, intelligent, funny, personable and important – without being self-important.

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MAMIL: MIDDLE AGED MAN IN LYCRA: Cleverly crafted tour-de-force
Prefab Hall, 14 Jessie Street (access also from Vivian St), Wellington
- reviewed by John Smythe

MAMIL: Middle Aged Man In Lycra starts with a radio commentary from ‘The Voice of Cycling’ himself (Phil Liggett) which turns out to be the imagined or actual the end of the story yet to come, of Bryan Cook’s fall from the intoxicating heights of property development and slow rise to some semblance of equilibrium and self-esteem.

It is 2007 when we first see him in his BMW X5, venting road-rage at Lycra cyclers.

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THE MOUNTEBANK: A bit of a fizzer
109 Dixon Street, Wellington
- reviewed by John Smythe

We have formed small clusters, as at a party, and the room is buzzing now with puzzle-solving. A ‘poor nervous soul’, delegated to read an announcement from the Host, reinforces the question of who can be trusted and makes it clear our major objective is to discover the identity of the Host, aka the Mountebank.

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THE ILLUSIONISTS 2.0: Reality suspended as acts cast a spell on an appreciative audience
Civic Theatre, Auckland
- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton

Along with the gasps of amazement, a perfectly staged illusion makes us question the evidence of our senses. Such scepticism is useful when reality is constantly transformed by digital manipulation and political spin doctors can make a discussion with a person suddenly reappear as a discussion with an office.

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THE ILLUSIONISTS 2.0: Age of Illusion
Civic Theatre, Auckland
- reviewed by James Wenley

Conspicuously missing from this new line-up are any female magicians, the show’s most unfortunate disappearing act. Instead, the show’s two women are relegated to cheesy back-up dancers, along with two men, whose moves misdirect our attention more than is probably intended. For a show that bills itself as the future of magic, the gender imbalance is not a promising portent.

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THE ELEPHANT MAN: A caring and careful production
Playhouse, Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, Hamilton
- reviewed by Gail Pittaway

The true and extraordinary story of John Merrick, ‘the Elephant Man’, has had several treatments, most famously as a film by David Lynch in 1980. But this play by Bernard Pomerance precedes the film and is a less sensationalist, more reflective but equally salutatory examination of what it means to be human.

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SHORT + SWEET 2014 THEATRE WEEK TWO: Good quality acting a notable feature
TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland
- reviewed by Bronwyn Elsmore

Ten minute plays are live theatre’s equivalent of literature’s flash fiction. In their concentration on a single issue or event they might seem simple, but they can be just as dramatic and effective as a longer work, and their construction is an art.

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

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