The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of Midsummer (A Play With Songs), 2080, and The Merchant of Venice.

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

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The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of Midsummer (A Play With Songs), 2080, and The Merchant of Venice.

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

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2080: A well-wrought microcosm
BATS Theatre, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
- reviewed by John Smythe

What is remarkable about White’s play – directed by Katie Wolfe in a bare Bats Theatre Dome space – is that the nature of this dystopian society is evoked through just four characters, abetted by Tash James’ lighting design and a sound design by Anonymouz, a.k.a. Matt Salapu. When I hear audience members, afterwards, say they’d like to see it as a film, I think sure, why not, except haven’t we just ‘seen’ it, thanks to the way the production elements work together to stimulate our imaginations?

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EVERYBODY’S READING ROOM: Often affecting and affectionate but needs rigid discipline
Captaine Bougainville Theatre, Forum North, 7 Rust Ave, Whangarei
- reviewed by David Stevens

There are scenes between Arthur and Marion (or parts of scenes) that are achingly honest, achingly truthful, beautifully evocative – a marriage of minds, and even hearts, but not overtly physical. I am quite touched, because I once knew people like this, it has the ring of how it was, or how it used to be.

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MEETING KARPOVSKY: Strong metaphors, accessible theatre, delightful performances
Expressions Arts & Entertainment Centre - Upper Hutt, Wellington
- reviewed by Tess Jamieson-Kahara

We find out through cleverly associated ballet characters and plot lines, that she, like Gizelle, was deceived in love by her ex-husband. Like Petrouchka, she is resemble a puppet, controlled by fear and unable to cut the strings to face the truth. Like Widow Simone, she feels as if she badly guarded her daughter and should’ve stopped her.

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MIDSUMMER (A PLAY WITH SONGS): Wonderfully flexible, fluid and clever
Centrepoint, Palmerston North
- reviewed by John Ross

The characters are amusingly ill-matched. Helena is a middle-class junior lawyer, who’s been stood up by her regular male companion. Bob comes from a far more modest background, although, oddly, when she picks him up in a pub, he has been reading Dostoevsky, “to cheer myself up.”

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MIDSUMMER (A PLAY WITH SONGS): Delightfully energetic, emotional and just plain funny
Centrepoint, Palmerston North
- reviewed by Joy Green

It’s always great to be asked to review a play, and, when you watch it, to find that you are able to recommend it wholeheartedly and without hesitation. Midsummer (A Play With Songs) is one of those pieces.

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SALUTE - REMEMBERING WORLD WAR: Joining NZ's WW1 commemorations
Founders Theatre, Hamilton
- reviewed by Dr Karen Barbour

In Neil Ieremia's Passchendaele, the concluding work in the programme, it is a relief to see the dancers move more freely in bare feet and without bows or boxes. The women shine alongside the men, all plunging into Ieremia's choreography with enthusiasm from the beginning. The red and black projected images by Geoff Tune of bloodied landscapes along with the red side lighting on the dancers' skins and (yet more) grey costumes, are a striking and unnerving contrast, and the emotional pitch of this work is appropriate for the finale of the programme.

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TREATS: Substantive
The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
- reviewed by Tim George

Dave, a journalist, has just come back from assignment in Iraq, and is determined to take up with his girlfriend again. Sick of his drinking and womanising, Ann wants nothing to do with him. Dancing around the nuclear disaster which is Dave and Ann's relationship, her new boyfriend Patrick tries to mend bridges, and sows the seeds for his destruction.

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THE MERCHANT OF VENICE: Brought to life with great gusto
The Wellington Irish Society, 17 Fifeshire St, Wellington
- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

No other plays lend themselves to such diverse ranges of productions as does Shakespeare, from the grand operatic style to minimalist productions on park lawns. The Lord Lackbeards Touring Company productions of Shakespeare are very much in line with the later and their The Merchant of Venice is no exception.

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NOT IN OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD: A powerful take on domestic violence
BATS Theatre, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

Over the years I have seen three or four plays designed to promote awareness of the blight that disfigures our society: domestic violence against women.

None that I can remember has been quite as effective theatrically as Jamie McCaskill's Not in Our Neighbourhood.

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THE MERCHANT OF VENICE: Easily digestible but thought-provoking
The Wellington Irish Society, 17 Fifeshire St, Wellington
- reviewed by John Smythe

Played in modern dress, the prevailing mood captures the transition of privileged young adults from feckless fun times (cf. the casino) to the more settled and financially responsible phase of life that marriage implies. And the lightness of touch in its playing allows the text to trip off tongues with a pleasing clarity, most of the time.

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TREATS: Something to think about and discuss
The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

As directed by Alistair Browning, the cast soon warms into their respective roles to present a recognisable portrait of three self-centred thirty-something urbanites in a ‘love’ triangle, and their dysfunctional attempts to relate to one another.

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

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