A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including: In Absentia, Moana Pacific Dance Showcase, Virtuosi, and There Is No Person Without a World.

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

A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including: In Absentia, Moana Pacific Dance Showcase, Virtuosi, and There Is No Person Without a World.

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

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George Street, Dunedin - QUEER DEPORTMENT: Absurd, delightful and challenging

- reviewed by Terry MacTavish

Hit town. Forget shopping, sauntering, worrying about how others are checking you out. Be your own crazy self, do your own wild thing entirely, and blow the consequences! Or, as Queer Deportment puts it with a little more class and erudition, “explore queer expression through demeanour and mannerisms, and the subversion of social rules around walking and shopping.”

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Globe Theatre, Dunedin - IN ABSENTIA: Emotional density and aesthetic pleasures

- reviewed by Jonathan W. Marshall

In Absentia is an exceptional piece of object / puppet theatre from Tablo Theatre, Christchurch. Composed out of a series of vignettes or images, the work gently shifts from one frame of quiet, wry contemplation, to another.

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TAPAC - The Auckland Performing Arts Centre, Auckland - MOANA PACIFIC DANCE SHOWCASE: Pacific connections explored in dance works

- reviewed by Margi Vaz Martin

Moana, meaning Ocean, presents a coming together of stories and ideas from Pacific choreographers living in Auckland City and their response to this urban environment. The underpinning theme of the showcase is to address the space between the heritage, traditions and contemporary dance world of the Pacific while recognizing our connection, seen in the metaphor of the ocean. The first three pieces particularly highlight significant issues for Pacific peoples.

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Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland - VIRTUOSI: Eloquent and beautiful dance documentary

- reviewed by Raewyn Whyte

The most exquisite footage is the extraordinarily eloquent sequences of each of them dancing a solo in the city (or cities) where they live now, with beautiful music by Australia-based Kiwi musician Mike Nock.

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Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland - VIRTUOSI: Breathtakingly beautiful and articulate

- reviewed by Jennifer Nikolai

In experiencing this doco, you will fall in love, you will shed a tear, you will see endless beautiful images of people you know. You will simultaneously travel and stay home. You will consider what home means. To you.

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Silo Park, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland - 1000 LOVERS: Must watch carefully

- reviewed by Clare Battersby

I walk away from the performance with images etched in my mind: the gliding Widow - the fiery, dynamic, wild, Lady in White; the red dress billowing so perfectly through the urban space as if past and present has collided; restaurant patrons bemusedly watching us watching the show; the hooded dancers framing the journey, drawing one’s attention and making the most of every dancing platform provided by the urban landscape.

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Community Gallery, 20 Princes St, Dunedin - THERE IS NO PERSON WITHOUT A WORLD: Complex and emotionally intense

- reviewed by Sharon Matthews

As I watched, my mind was filled with images of broken discarded dolls—an image heightened by the masks of nylon the performers pulled over their faces at one point—leading me to wonder about the gender specificity of this performance. At one point, Fleming and Why dance with/react to white feminine undergarments and nightclothes, both colour and garment bring to mind unsettling associations.

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Regent Theatre, Dunedin - MADE TO MOVE - THE ROYAL NZ BALLET: Three choreographies, utterly different and utterly delightful

- reviewed by Hannah Molloy

And then, to bring the audience back to earth, Ethan Stiefel’s Bier Halle was hilarious. It was such a dramatic shift in mood and the audience lapped it up. The set was outrageously extravagant, eminently suited to the outrageous antics, from the poor Nerd who fell desperately in love with the Cuckoo, to the bold studly young men showing off in front of the shameless floosies flicking their skirts. The drunken revelry was disturbingly reminiscent of a night at the Captain Cook (one of Dunedin’s finest student watering holes for those out of town), with quite a lot of smooching, the bar manager trying to keep undesirables out (unsuccessfully), those who’ve had one (or six) too many retiring sharply to a corner for a private moment... It all came rushing back...

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The Church, 50 Dundas Street, Dunedin - FAULTY TOWERS THE DINING EXPERIENCE: Uproarious

- reviewed by Kimberley Buchan

So this is an interactive theatre piece in a restaurant based on a TV show based on a real life experience. Chunks of the material heavily reference (recycle) the script of the television show.

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Q, 305 Queen St, Auckland - HUI: A deluge of contemptuous and often fierce melees

- reviewed by Tamati Patuwai

Set in a family home, the opening few moments of HUI give a magical entry as we learn that Bob Wahie, an elderly Maori man, has passed away. His autistic son George waits for the return of his siblings to their whanau home, to carry out his beloved father’s wishes for cremation.

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Maidment, Auckland - LEO: Simple devices create rich illusions

- reviewed by Raewyn Whyte

LEO is a marvelous production that makes no attempt to disguise the illusory mechanisms on which it relies, yet seduces you within a minute or so into its doppelganger worlds which coexist at 90 degrees to each other, with a great deal of the seduction due to the marvelous performance by the agile, physically adept Tobias Wegner.

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Q, 305 Queen St, Auckland - HUI: Hui another breakthrough for our times

- reviewed by Jack Gray

The set design by Sean Coyle was spectacular. An all in one stage design like they use on TV sitcoms with a lounge, a kitchen, passageway and a concealed bedroom. Fences suggested front and back door pathways. The lighting by Jennifer Lal transformed the set into ghostly partitions by penetrating the wallpaper (which was on my family wall in the 80's!) and opening and closing spaces. No actor had yet walked the stage - yet so much was going on - if you're that way inclined and can read the unseen as we are sometimes taught to do.

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - LE TONU. THE DECISION.: Brisk theatrical parable

- reviewed by Nik Smythe

A single, softly lit wooden chair graces the empty stage. Three men enter and, before launching into the play, introduce themselves by way of a haunting Samoan hymn.

Fasitua Amosa is Peni, the hardworking, forthright son of elderly immigrant ‘Poppa’ (Max Palamo) whose birthday party is today.

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Allen Hall Theatre, Dunedin - FOOTNOTE FORTE SERIES 2013 - WE HAVE BEEN THERE: Intense... acts of moving

- reviewed by Hannah Molloy

During the performance, I pondered the how the current experience of the watcher, whoever she or he may be, colours perception of performance. A theory about this developed as I watched, largely from the adjectives forming in my own brain– disarticulated, primeval, watchful, offering, frenzied, graceful - but I felt I should discard it...

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - AOTEAROA – FOUND IN TRANSLATION: Entertaining insights into cultural adaptation inconsistently delivered

- reviewed by Aidan-B. Howard

I am highly impressed by the collection of poems and snippets delivered as Aotearoa - Found In Translation. Whoever selected them has a keen eye (or ear) for consistency and continuity. The subject is definitely that of coming to a new land and being a part of this place called ‘Aotearoa’.

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Ilott Theatre, Wellington - KAPUT: Acrobatic, funny and good with his audience

- reviewed by John Smythe

We’re into good old ‘don’t try this at home’ slap-stick humour here, involving holes in paper (the screen) and trying to patch them, rolls of paper, sticky tape, trestles and planks, a bucket of ‘paste’, a ladder …

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Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre, Auckland - TONGAN MORRIS MEN: A wonderful and funny journey

- reviewed by Tania Kopytko

The story was a wildly unbelievable ruse which created the juxtapositions for all this exploration and a wonderfully funny but at times poignant tale. Morris dance needed a “Jonah Lomu” to survive: an English teacher and Morris dance master, Mr Stalk, was sent to New Zealand to find one. The students of St Bernard’s year 13 decided to complete NCEA by taking an easy dance paper, but to their horror found that the usual teacher had been replaced by the Morris dance master.

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Q, 305 Queen St, Auckland - HUI: See it while you can

- reviewed by Simon Wilson

At last, a festival play that’s not a musical! Not to take away from the splendid musical theatre we have seen, of course, but the festival has been crying out for a good old-fashioned piece of searing, cathartic, turn-you-inside-out-and-place-you-back-in-the-world play, and now it has one. And it’s a New Zealand play to boot.

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Q, 305 Queen St, Auckland - HUI: Whanau ties

- reviewed by Matt Baker

Family is an intrinsically universal concept, one to which all – regardless of (and sometimes in spite of) one’s upbringing – can relate. Instigated by the ultimate qualifier of death, Mitch Tawhi Thomas explores this concept, and the dynamics surrounding it, in the world premiere of the appropriately titled Hui. Said dynamics are illustrated through easily identifiable Kiwi characters, who, both in writing and performance, successfully avoid any sense of stereotypical portrayal.

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Q, 305 Queen St, Auckland - HUI: Taut study of dysfunction

- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton

The festival offering from playwright Mitch Tawhi Thomas is a taut study of family dysfunction that finds plenty of life and laughter in the explosive quarrelling of estranged brothers thrown together by the death of their father.

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Temple Gallery, Dunedin - ENTOMO: Fantastic elements still developing

- reviewed by Jonathan W. Marshall

In short, EA&AE offer a wonderful performance ---- something of a must see in the Fringe for those interested in dance. But the work also still needs further development to reach its full potential. EA&AE’s ongoing international tours should help develop that.

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Downstage Theatre, Wellington - DUCK, DEATH AND THE TULIP: Entrancing storytelling with impeccable puppetry

- reviewed by John Smythe

Death is something all children ask about eventually, either as an abstract idea, or because a grandparent or pet has died. Maybe it comes from questioning where their food comes from – or whether dead flowers go “to heaven” too? Even if they are spared something unexpected and tragic happening close to their lives, it may come up through listening to or watching the news.

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Odlins Plaza Marquee, Taranki Wharf, Wellington - DOWN BENEATH BELOW: A rich and playful world

- reviewed by Lyne Pringle

Michael Gudgeon (Pen) and Sam Wang (Quinn) are the penguins (unspecified which species). They are groovy rapping hip hoppy types each with a distinctive character and they even get to rap a bit to help us identify the other characters in the work. Wang’s rap in Chinese is a standout, as is his dopey bird, whilst Gudgeon is insouciant and cool. Their dancing is vigorous and hilarious when, stiff legged, they endeavour to negotiate the ramps.

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Silo Park, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland - 1000 LOVERS: Mythology in migration

- reviewed by Jesse Quaid

Gathered together in the growing darkness, we look out across Silo Park, searching for movement. As figures emerge out of the darkness, we gradually become aware of what is happening. A widow paces ceaselessly; a girl in red lays a path towards her, while faintly menacing figures watch from nearby vantage points. An emotive soundtrack is delivered through headphones, allowing the audience to carry the sound with them but producing an uncomfortably isolating effect, somewhat like watching a movie rather than a live performance.

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DOMINION ROAD, Auckland - DOMINION ROAD STORIES: Loud and proud fusion of theatre and local communities

- reviewed by Kate Ward-Smythe (2)

After last night’s one-off ‘Come Dancing’, my immersion into ATC / AUT / Auckland Arts Festival’s co-pro, Dominion Road Stories (DRS), continues on a wet and windy St Patrick’s Day.

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Red Lecture Theatre, Dunedin - CRISPIN HELLION GLOVERS BIG SLIDESHOW AND FILMS: Surrealist scratching

- reviewed by Jonathan W. Marshall

After rising to acting prominence as the hopelessly square father of Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future 1, Crispin Glover has made a side career out of various outre occupations. These include directing and producing “cult/experimental” films such as It Is Fine and What Is This? And self-publishing surreal illustrated books purportedly made out of a pastiche of elements cut out of 19th century and early 20th century texts, to which Glover adds scrawled images, words and marks.

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DOMINION ROAD, Auckland - DOMINION ROAD STORIES: Celebrating the songs, dances and stories of yesteryear

- reviewed by Kate Ward-Smythe

Yet the charming chaos that comes when an ambitious vision is full of wonderful moments, but simply under-rehearsed as a whole, just doesn’t seem to matter, or bother the friendly crowd. It is an occasion where, after each item, those on stage look and react with as much enthusiasm and delight, as those in the audience.

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Aotea Centre at THE EDGE, Auckland - ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS: Centrepiece mixes wit with superb comic acting

- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton

The Auckland Arts Festival's centrepiece One Man, Two Guvnors demonstrates what happens when the sophisticated elegance of commedia dell'arte collides with the eccentric weirdness of classic British comedy.

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The Lounge, 50 Dundas St, Dunedin - WHAT IS THIS, WOMAN'S HOUR?: Yet more proof: you can have a fanny and still be funny

- reviewed by Terry MacTavish

Funny how we still need them. This isn’t the first time an all-women group, frustrated by the lack of opportunities and perhaps with a message to impart, has taken over Allen Hall – I recall Hen’s Teeth in the early eighties, The Short and Girlies in the late eighties.

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Globe Theatre, Dunedin - PRIVATISING PARTS: Unsettling, incredibly funny and intensely personal

- reviewed by Sharon Matthews

On one level Privatising Parts — the latest theatrical adaptation of a Richard Meros novel — is a savage satirical investigation into the effects of the past twenty-odd years of user-pays New Zealand politics on social norms.

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Community Gallery, 20 Princes St, Dunedin - HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND STILL APPEAR NORMAL: A gentle but physical commentary

- reviewed by Hannah Molloy

The performance is full of imagery, from Sofia and Sarah’s stark matching black and white outfits and slicked back hair at variance with Natalie's loose red hair and more flamboyant clothing – she is clearly never going to fit in with her purple jacket! A movement sequence towards the end, when Natalie has had enough of being bossed about and put down, is reminiscent of a Greco-Roman wrestling match, with its physicality and focus on the nearness and oppression of the other. It compares neatly to an earlier sequence full of yogic references, smoother and more fluid, introverted but seeking strength in the surrounding world.

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Isis Lounge, 68 Princess St, Dunedin - GOBSMACKED: SHOWBIZ AND DATING: Polished and utterly hilarious

- reviewed by Kimberley Buchan

Gobsmacked is a fast paced torrent of anecdotes, musical clips, 80s songs and raunchy quips. The brazen stereotypes of the characters and the situations they find themselves in are flaunted and revelled in.

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Dunedin Gasworks Museum, Dunedin - MR FAUST & DR JABBERWOCKY: A STEAMPUNK FIRE-FABLE: Fabulous imagineering

- reviewed by Terry MacTavish

This glorious union of Steampunk, Firebugs and the Gasworks Museum is a three-way made in heaven. (Or possibly hell.) I can’t imagine a better combination to interpret the medieval legend of Faust, who in his thirst for knowledge sells his soul to the devil, in return sampling such dubious delights as a parade of the Seven Deadly Sins.

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Globe Theatre, Dunedin - THE LAST TANIWHA: Strong text and performers undermined by directorial inconsistencies

- reviewed by Jonathan W. Marshall

Since producing the script for The Last Taniwha in 2011, theatre-maker Chris Molloy has admirably been getting out and about ensuring its performance, playing the less charismatic of the two protagonists in the piece, and intermittently taking on the role of director as well.

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San Francisco Bathhouse Heat #1, Wellington - THE WELLINGTON RAW COMEDY QUEST: Chicken fight Kiwi style

- reviewed by Lucy O'Connor

I don't think I'm sadistic, but I certainly do enjoy a good old classic awkward moment. Raw Comedy. The opportunity for valiant members of the human species to take me on and ideally, prove me wrong. It is a cruel set up.

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ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland - MADE TO MOVE - THE ROYAL NZ BALLET: Triple bill goes from delicacy to rousing polka

- reviewed by Bernadette Rae

There the obvious references to traditional Pacifika and its dance forms ends, replaced by an assault of charged, percussive, angular and athletic movement which is both firmly rooted and upwardly explosive with lifts and propulsions, particularly of the women by the men. And brilliantly, breathtakingly performed.

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Corban Estate Arts Centre, Henderson, Auckland - HOU 2013 - ATAMIRA DANCE COMPANY: Adrenalin saturates dance mix

- reviewed by Raewyn Whyte

The highlight of Atamira Dance Company's annual choreographic development season, HOU for 2013 is an adrenalin-saturated, crowd-pleasing dance by choreographer Nancy Wijohn which looks destined to become much-performed.

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The Basement, Auckland - AND I WAS LIKE: And I Was Like: Whatever

- reviewed by Matt Baker

In his programme notes, writer and director Sam Brooks puts forth the question, “What happens when you take one of the fundamental pillars of relationships, the words, out of the equation?” He summarises by saying that “when it gets from the stage to your faces, maybe you’ll get your answer.” If there is an answer to be found in this play, it is a bleak one.

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Aotea Centre at THE EDGE, Auckland - ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS: One show, twice the laughs

- reviewed by Vanessa Byrnes

It’s really very funny and the direct connection to Restoration comedy is hard to ignore as stock characters (given truthful representation) energetically push things along. Arthur and his cast mates – with the excellent direction of Nicholas Hytner – bring intelligent, quirky, physical comedy to the plate.

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Aotea Centre at THE EDGE, Auckland - ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS: Uncomfortable

- reviewed by Simon Wilson

There are sequences of enormous hilarity in the National Theatre’s international smash-hit One Man, Two Guvnors, and a great number of incidental moments scattered between those sequences that are also side-splittingly funny. It can’t be denied, they know how to make you laugh.

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The Civic – THE EDGE, Auckland - URBAN BY CIRCOLOMBIA: Jaw dropping

- reviewed by Catherine McGregor

Just before the house lights go down, a chorus of whoops – no doubt part of “street circus” company Circolombia’s pre-performance ritual – is audible from off-stage. The show hasn’t even begun and already the venerable old Civic is feeling a lot less staid. There’s a short prelude featuring Circolombia’s two female acrobats. Then the bass kicks in, and we’re off.

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The Bluestone Room, Auckland CBD, Auckland - THE STRANGE UNDOING OF PRUDENCIA HART: A room, a great story and imagination

- reviewed by Johnny Givins

This show was conceived in an old pub in Kelso (Scottish borders) during a snow storm lock-in and was developed with wild creativity, great acting skill, superb singing and lots of audience participation ideas.

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The Bluestone Room, Auckland CBD, Auckland - THE STRANGE UNDOING OF PRUDENCIA HART: So much fun

- reviewed by Simon Wilson

They start serious, with a lament, and then launch themselves into a long and very funny jag, all in rhyming couplets and loosely tied to a preposterous academic dispute about “authentic” modern folk music. As in, ballads or football songs?

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The Bluestone Room, Auckland CBD, Auckland - THE STRANGE UNDOING OF PRUDENCIA HART: Songs from the source of Scots' theatre

- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton

The roots of European theatre are deeply entangled with the culture of the ale-house and the Scottish National theatre makes an exuberant return to the source with a riotously funny and at times tenderly lyrical tribute to Scottish narrative ballads.

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The Playhouse, Dunedin - THE ROAD THAT WASN'T THERE: Charming, quirky and whimsical

- reviewed by Kimberley Buchan

It is a folk tale about a map-napping old lady who touches on the distinction between the world of fantasy and the world of insanity. The lines are further blurred as she is established as a Kiwi connoisseur of the tall tale.

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The Playhouse, Dunedin - THE ROAD THAT WASN'T THERE: Ingenious blend of elements

- reviewed by Barbara Frame

Sometime in Otago's past Maggie, a resourceful St Bathans lass on her way to the dreaded Woodrot Estate, not only locates such a road between two cabbage trees but follows it. It leads to a place beyond reality, where wonderful things can happen, and wonderful things can turn, without warning, into terrible things.

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Q Theatre Loft, Auckland - I, GEORGE NEPIA: Definitively theatrical biography

- reviewed by Nik Smythe

Hone Kouka’s respectful script has a distinctly ethereal tone to it, eschewing the straightforward biographical approach and instead wafting, as it does, on the warm Pacific breeze of George’s mind.

http://www.theatreview.org.nz/reviews/review.php?id=5690

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

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