A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including Louis Pearl, The Amazing Bubble Man, Tusk Tusk, The Magic Chicken, and Young & Hungry 2012.

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

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Civic Theatre, Auckland - LOUIS PEARL, THE AMAZING BUBBLE MAN: Real, interactive, inviting, creative, engaging, educational and entertaining
- reviewed by Kate Ward-Smythe

Louis Pearl is extraordinary. Geek-ish in a good way, low-key and almost shy, he is not your usual energized, over-happy children’s theatre performer. Quite the opposite. Louis doesn’t try to hype up the kids or milk gags or applause. Instead this fascinating and passionate bubble-lover chooses to let the bubbles speak for themselves.

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Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - TUSK TUSK: Repetitive script undermines performing potential
- reviewed by (critic uncredited)

Tusk Tusk by the UK's Polly Stenham is a highly-strung drama with a premise taken from a child's make-believe game: three siblings – aged 16, 14 and 7 – have to fend for themselves when their mother disappears. All this information is drip-fed to create artificial suspense, lengthening the show to two hours. But the concept is interesting ...

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Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - CHECKOUT CHICKS THE MUSICAL: Feel-good hilarity
- reviewed by (critic uncredited)

Checkout Chicks: The Musical, as its title suggests, is several kumara truckloads of fun. If you've "lost your smile", definitely "take a trip down the aisle" at Shop N Pay at Paru Bay. A high energy 75 minutes written by Julia Truscott and Rachel Callinan, and directed by Simon Coleman, this is an undemanding piece of feel-good hilarity, featuring long onion strings of quick-fire quips set to catchy show tunes.

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Concert Chamber - Town Hall, THE EDGE, Auckland - THE MAGIC CHICKEN: Brilliantly contrived madcappery
- reviewed by Lexie Matheson

The Magic Chicken is an exceptionally fine theatre work and should be seen by anyone who adores great theatre and who is between the ages of three and one hundred and three! Don’t be put off if you saw it the first time around, it’s even better now!

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Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - TUSK TUSK: Dysfunction, mystery, lightness and levity
- reviewed by Lexie Matheson

Often as hilarious as it is heart breaking, Tusk Tusk is a tale of family ties and loyalty tested to the maximum by three very young people facing an uncertain future with stoicism, invention and humour.

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Soundings - Te Papa, Wellington - BREATHE: A CELEBRATION OF SONG AND DANCE IN AID OF CYSTIC FIBROSIS: A sublime and special fundraising event
- reviewed by Lyne Pringle

It is great to see art being used for community good: deeply heart-warming....
It is a darn good idea to have an evening of dance pas de deux - and a privilege to attend.

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BATS, Wellington - YOUNG & HUNGRY 2012: Social media in lead role on youth drama
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

Social media, in particular Facebook, is becoming a dominate feature of plays and this year the Young and Hungry season at BATS is no exception. And this year the three plays that make up the programme achieve, without exception, all the ideals of the Young and Hungry concept and are probably some of the best productions seen in the 18 years the programme has been going.

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Bruce Mason Centre, Auckland - THE GINGERBREAD MAN: Songs, laughter, audience interaction and the chases kids adore
- reviewed by Adey Ramsel

No matter how many times you see it, a group of children watching live theatre is always a joy and holds high hopes for the future.

Phineas Phrog has done it again, combining all the right ingredients to capture the imagination of its target audience.

Sarah Somerville has turned her talents to the tale of The Gingerbread Man this time, creating a fast, fun-filled fifty minutes.

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BATS, Wellington - YOUNG & HUNGRY 2012: Dynamic productions to feed the appetites
- reviewed by John Smythe

“With the 2012 Mayan end of the world nigh,” the publicity blurb tells us, “it’s survival of the fittest with three plays about outwitting, outplaying and outlasting the competition.” They are indeed thematically unified but stylistically they’re very different.

So too are the excellent set designs (mentor: Meg Rollandi), each transforming the space in a very distinctive way.

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Waikato Museum, Victoria Street, Hamilton - DOUBLE PORTRAIT: FINDING FRANCES HODGKINS: A passion to paint against all odds
- reviewed by Gail Pittaway

One of a handful of New Zealand artists to achieve fame abroad, Frances Hodgkins has always been an enigmatic figure. Jan Bolwell’s play attempts to give a portrait of the painter, by animating elements of her letters and linking what is known of her life into the context of painting – particularly British painting – in the early Twentieth Century. Certainly she succeeds in showing us a passionate woman, a risk-taker and eccentric, and introduces an eclectic range of real and imagined people involved in this story.

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Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, The Edge, Auckland - BLACK CONFETTI: Shivering and Shaking; The Glittery Black
- reviewed by Rosabel Tan

Siggy (Kip Chapman) is the quintessential drifter. He’s spent the past seven years “finding his niche” – that is, working his way through every stage one paper offered by the Faculty of Arts – and he’d happily continue this search, only The Dean (Adam Gardiner) is now threatening to kick him out: Not for his unrelenting dedication to underachievement, not even because he’s a small-time drug dealer catering to staff and students’ appetite for black (a fictional drug not unlike cocaine), but because ...

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Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - CHECKOUT CHICKS THE MUSICAL: High energy and fast pace in Kiwi comedy with catchy tunes
- reviewed by Melisa Martin

That said, I was the first to be caught singing the catchiest lines to ushers as I exited the theatre, into the foyer where hordes of young people gathered, excited, pleased and fulfilled with their evenings entertainment.

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Court Theatre, Bernard Street, Addington, Christchurch - WHY ARE MY PARENTS SO BORING?: Highly recommended original story with depth and heart
- reviewed by Erin Harrington

Mum (Kathleen Burns) and Dad (David Ladderman) are boring and stuffy – they wear grey three piece suits and bowler hats, and they don’t seem to have much time for fun or spontaneity. Enter their daughter (Laura Daniel), who is excited about the promise of school holidays.

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Gryphon, Wellington - IMMACULATE: A fertile imagination at play
- reviewed by John Smythe

Unexpected pregnancy can do strange things to a single woman, even more so when she hasn’t had sex for eleven months; not that she remembers, anyway. This is the premise of UK playwright Oliver Lansley’s whimsical play, happily relocated in NZ by director Melanie Camp, given the situation is universal and the script does not demand cultural specificity.

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Playhouse, Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, Hamilton - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: TO BE OR NOT TO BE: Thrilling collision of characters
- reviewed by Mark Houlahan

Michael Hurst’s first solo show is terrific. The few remaining seats for the Hamilton shows should be snapped up. When it comes around, just go see it. It is the most entertaining and refreshing solo piece since the very first run of Jacob Rajan’s Krishnan’s Dairy in the 1990s.

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Meteor Theatre, Hamilton - STANDSTILL: Irreverent, bizarre, compelling
- reviewed by Gail Pittaway

Unlike anything I’ve seen on stage since the days of the good old avant garde, from the moment the three actors step onto treadmills until they step off an hour later, they are running or stepping though a series of scenarios, so simple as to be convincing, so convincing as to be compelling.

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TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland - ALICE: greatly entertaining hour-long flight of fancy
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

The Outfit’s manifestation uses not only characters and scenes from Lewis Carroll’s classic brace of children’s novels but also elements of Tim Burton’s recent sequel, in particular the notion that innocently rebellious ‘imaginaire’ Alice is the key to an ancient prophecy in which she is to battle the pompously bitter Queen of Hearts ...

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ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland - THE NUTCRACKER ON ICE: The Nutcracker on Ice
- reviewed by Bernadette Rae

There are racing rodents, energiser bunny tin soldiers, a quartet of hallucogenically costumed Cossacks, and a Nutcracker prince of gorgeously elongated limb and romantic role, who thinks nothing of back-flipping his besotted Marie (not Clara, in this version) at lightening speed, shoulder height, spinning, grinning and she all lilac satin, flying, arched spine, extending - and making a perfect landing. Chunk. Flurry. Then they are off on the next choreographic curlicue and swirl.

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Gryphon, Wellington - HANSEL AND GRETEL: Uncomplicated story brought to life
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

Another traditional tale innovatively adapted is Kapitall Kids Theatre’s production of Hansel and Gretel by Ben Haddock and Rebecca Parker.

Much of the story has been pared back with lots of cleverly adapted songs included to make the story simply but effectively told.

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Circa Two, Wellington - THE 3 BEARS … AND GOLDILOCKS: Post-Goldilocks adventures
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

The story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears gets another telling these holidays, this time from Improvisors Kids at Circa Two. However this production, titled The 3 Bears, is post-Goldilocks and follows the adventures of the three Bears after their home invasion by Goldilocks, who never actually appears in this production.

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Dance Studio, Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, Hamilton - ATONAL HEART : FOUR MONOLOGUES: Tales of the weird and creepy give laughter and pause
- reviewed by Mark Houlahan

A sad tale’s best for winter, Shakespeare writes. Atonal Heart, the only piece of new local writing to feature in this year’s Fuel festival, bears this out well.

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Dance Studio, Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, Hamilton - ATONAL HEART : FOUR MONOLOGUES: Intelligent, original, polished
- reviewed by Brendan West

Atonal Heart is a production that has steadily gained steam since its creation. Penned by veteran Hamilton playsmith Michael Switzer and relative newcomer James Cain, it is presented as a set of four monologues that interlock in style but not narrative. Originally staged as a part of the 2011 Fringe Festival, it has shed some of its homegrown garments, slicked back its hair and launched onto the Fuel stage.

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4 Moncrieff St., Mt. Victoria, Wellington - GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS: Fresh and invigorating
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

KidzStuff Theatre for Children is running a great new talent contest in town called What Bears Have Talent. Unfortunately, one of the contestants, a young girl called Goldilocks, is not eligible to enter because she isn’t a bear.

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CAPITAL E, McKenzie Theatre, Wellington - IVY – SAVIOUR OF THE DINOSAUR!: Innovative tale for youngsters
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

During the day Ivy is a cleaning lady housed in the basement store room of the museum where there is a great array of historical artefacts, set out on Alice Hill’s wonderfully creative set. But by night she is Ivy the palaeontologist on a quest to save the dinosaurs.

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

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