A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including Invisible Atom, Call Cutta in a Box, AB-Surd, and Yes. No. Maybe?

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

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A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including Invisible Atom, Call Cutta in a Box, AB-Surd, and Yes. No. Maybe?

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

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Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, The Edge, Auckland - INVISIBLE ATOM: Invisible Man

- reviewed by Sharu Delilkan

His name is Atom as in the bomb, not Adam as in Eve, something Anthony Black pointed out right from the start. He stood on a black platform, which looked a bit like a pedestal and was a great metaphor for a man at his apex.

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Mystery location, Auckland - CALL CUTTA IN A BOX: Pick up the Phone

- reviewed by James Wenley

The best advice I can give those who are going to Call Cutta in a Box is this: Go with your defences down, an inquisitive mind, and an open heart. The consensus does seem to be that the less you know going into Call Cutta the better. So for those don’t want to be spoiled, read this review after you’ve seen it. But for those who can’t get to it, or just can’t help themselves, here is my experience.

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Gryphon, Wellington - BE GLAD YOU’RE NEUROTIC: Needs less pacing and better pacing

- reviewed by John Smythe

With a declared role model like Woody Allen, it's surprising Phil Braithwaite's monologue about being neurotic doesn't have us laughing out loud more. Not that there's not the odd guffaw on opening night – quite a few in fact – but mostly we smile at the way he interrogates his own life in relation to Dr Louis E Bisch's seminal 1939 book, Be Glad You're Neurotic.

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Medici Court, Hamilton Gardens, Hamilton - VENTURINA VENTURINA: Splendid ensemble acting with pace, timing and energy

- reviewed by Gail Pittaway

What a treat to see such a classic old charmer of a play and so well acted. The life of Carlo Goldoni, the Italian author of this comedy, spanned much of the eighteenth century and bridged the theatrical styles between commedia dell'arte with its masks and stock characters and Moliere’s more biting satires of society and manners. This context is very clear in this short and boisterous play which champions the poor and mocks the upper classes, while showing us the nitty gritty of both sides.

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BATS, Wellington - YES. NO. MAYBE?: Throwing caution to the wind?

- reviewed by Greer Robertson

The final piece however, “Things we didn’t say” choreographed by Sarah Knox, appears more self-assured, possessing a successful authentic edge with a cohesive connection. A mature, carefully thought out message is conveyed with attention to detail and emotion. There is good communication between the work, the dancers and the audience.

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Private home; Maarama Crescent, Aro Valley, Wellington - AB-SURD: Sensitive partners in an intimate environment

- reviewed by Lyne Pringle

It is an elegant and precise performance. Ludbrook has an engaging presence and her fellow performer Carmelo Montarro is a sympathetic collaborator playing a love interest , a shadow self and dream inhabitant.

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Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, The Edge, Auckland - INVISIBLE ATOM: Surprisingly intimate portrait of a man in crisis

- reviewed by Vanessa Byrnes

“Give me one moment in time,” sang Whitney Houston, “when I’m racing with destiny.” Anthony Black’s much feted-at-Festivals solo performance gives us just that, as he cleverly dissects a crucial moment in time and then expands the events leading up to its temporal date with destiny.

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English Flower Garden, Hamilton Gardens, Hamilton - HOME: Touching lines of communication

- reviewed by Gaye Poole

Personal letters, diary entries ... the years between original writing and re-reading give these artefacts both 'another country' and utterly immediate status, and this is what makes a show like Home work.

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BATS, Wellington - TRANSIT OF VENUS VS. NOSFERATU: Little to offer as theatre

- reviewed by John Smythe

Note the “vs” in the title. This is not Transit of Venus does Nosferatu or Nosferatu with Transit of Venus. This Auckland-based indie pop-rock / mutable project band band is apparently in competition with F W Murnau’s 1922 German expressionist silent horror film. However, “The music gifts new emotion and narrative to the classic horror film,” according to the media release.

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BATS, Wellington - TRANSIT OF VENUS VS. NOSFERATU: All up, pretty cool

- reviewed by Steve Dean

As it says on the tin, it's a projection of Nosferatu, of the screen size we used to have up in the science lab at the University for a short while about 20 years ago. There is a narrator and 3 musicians. Each is identified and dressed as a character from the film.

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Tudor Garden, Hamilton Gardens, Hamilton - A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM: Humorous invention in fast and tight production

- reviewed by Gail Pittaway

When for some reason the planned and advertised production of Twelfth Night from the core troupe of the Hamilton Gardens Festival Slip of the tongue theatre was jettisoned, a new production was born out of the panic, adding in some more of Hamilton’s finest actors from a range of theatrical groups such as Full House, Improv Combat, Apocalypse Lounge, and Crossmatch.

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Fortune Theatre, Dunedin - THE MOTOR CAMP: A very NZ holiday hell

- reviewed by Barbara Frame

It's the holiday from hell as the very intellectual, liberal Redmond from Dunedin find themselves next to Invercargill uber-bogans Mike Hislop, his wife Dawn and her teenage son Jared.

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Lower NZI, Level 1, Aotea Centre, Auckland - THOUGHT/ACTION: THE DEATH OF AGENCY: Quietly raw, challenging and non-confrontational

- reviewed by Nik Smythe

In the large unembellished Lower NZI function room with the large shiny white columns, two men take the stage, dressed unassumingly in black, white and grey tones similar to the venue’s hideous patterned grey carpet. Peter is a gently spoken silver-haired chap in his late fifties, with a twinkle in his bespectacled eye and a cheeky little smile. Frank is younger, maybe mid thirties, intensely earnest in emotional tone, feverishly expressive in physical character.

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Riverbank below #1 Car Park, Hamilton Gardens, Hamilton - ONE DAY A TANIWHA…: Delightful invention with corny but cute appeal

- reviewed by Gail Pittaway

With the title taken from a song many learn as children, “One day a taniwha went swimming in the moana,” there are no prizes for guessing who the prime audience for this show.

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Mystery location, Auckland - CALL CUTTA IN A BOX: Innovative ‘reality theatre’ format satisfies and amuses

- reviewed by Janet McAllister

Are you nervous?" asks Mitasha "Mitu" Bhattacharya. Well yes, Mitu, thanks for asking; you're a stranger in aCalcuttacall centre, hired to phone me on a crackly line as a theatrical performance.

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Museum of Wellington City & Sea, Wellington - SEA OF STORIES: Charming and interesting moments amid lack of build and uneven pace

- reviewed by Helen Sims

Despite the Antipodean displays all around us, the story is set in a small fishing village in England, where a young girl called Freya has spent all her life. Freya’s father and just about everyone else she knows is a fisherman. Her father has led her to believe that her mother was from the sea, so Freya is half from the land and half from the sea.

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Lower NZI, Level 1, Aotea Centre, Auckland - 2 DIMENSIONAL LIFE OF HER: New Performance, New Dimensions

- reviewed by James Wenley

Well the New Performance Festival has sprung up within the little-seen bowels of the Aotea Centre. A pop-up (and very cool) festival club is the gateway to a host of shows that, at the very least, will leave you plenty to talk about after.

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Aotea Centre at THE EDGE®, Auckland - I AM A WEE BIT STUMPED: Breaking performance boundaries

- reviewed by Christina Houghton

It's as if we are watching an endurance sport. Even as the tape cuts cruelly across Blomqvist stomach, we watch in anticipation as the large pile of chairs topples to the side. At the same time we experience time folding in on itself as these two artist re-perform actions from another past as their two histories combine into this one event. Commonalities and differences are highlighted as both reveal how they came to be here. And we are left asking ourselves how we value physical prowess.

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Botanical Gardens: The Dell, Wellington - TWELFTH NIGHT: A festive air of midsummer madness

- reviewed by John Smythe

“If this were play'd upon a stage now,” says Fabian of the gullible Malvolio’s falling for the fake love letter from Olivia that has caused him to parade in yellow stockings and cross garters, “I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” Thus Shakespeare ‘bites his thumb’ at Aristotle’s dictum that probability is a crucial prerequisite for good comedy.

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Kitchen Garden, Hamilton Gardens, Hamilton - PETER RABBIT: The right play in the right place by the right people for the right length of time

- reviewed by Gail Pittaway

Full House Productions have made a charming re-creation of this sunny little tale with a few innovative twists. Only the animals speak words; Mr McGregor speaks like a drunken Yorkshireman and only his cat can translate his words.

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Fortune Theatre, Dunedin - THE MOTOR CAMP: Darker issues explored amid frenetic farce

- reviewed by Terry MacTavish

The Fortune’s 2012 season is off to a flying start, after a brilliant launch of its whole programme, that proved to be fascinating promenade theatre in itself. The Motor Camp seems certain to continue Fortune’s successful wooing of theDunedin public with quality comedy, much of it purest New Zild. It’s funny, it’s dirty, it’s provocative. Audiences will love it.

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Aotea Centre at THE EDGE®, Auckland - GHOSTING PART 2 - CABARET: A Ghost in the Machine

- reviewed by Sharu Delilkan

True to form Sean Curham's work at the New Performance Festival, Ghosting Part 2 – Cabaret, is nothing short of unexpected.

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Mystery location, Auckland - CALL CUTTA IN A BOX: Delightful, charming , engaging

- reviewed by Raewyn Whyte

To describe what was included in my 50 minutes with the ever-so-engaging Madhuree would be to disclose many of the elements that make this experience so charming -- and as I would encourage everyone who can do so to take the time for this singularly rich experience, I will not disclose them.

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Lower NZI, Level 1, Aotea Centre, Auckland - THE RISK OF LISTENING WITH TAO WELLS: Fraudulent, unfocussed, unprofessional presentation = boredom

- reviewed by Stephen Austin

No effort is made to create a work that rises above its initial material. This is what it is, a polemic presented with no interest in the discourse itself and nothing grows from it. Actors arrive and come and go as they please; if they are not in the room when their lines are to be spoken, they simply are not said.

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BATS, Wellington - THE 37TH SITUATION: Jam-packed hour of entertaining exploration

- reviewed by John Smythe

Amid a clutter of books, boxes, cases and a desk, The Situationalists ... play with each in random order. Sometimes true and very personal experiences will inform the content of what’s played out; sometimes highly imaginative scenarios emerge. Sometimes the relationship between the projected situation title and what they are doing is clear; sometimes it’s obscure.

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Lower NZI, Level 1, Aotea Centre, Auckland - 2 DIMENSIONAL LIFE OF HER: A charming, fresh approach to mixed-media work

- reviewed by Stephen Austin

There is excellent and generous use of cinematic framing device and theatrical convention that are at the core of the piece, allowing the whole space to be utilised while none of the space is actually filled.

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Fred’s, 46 Frederick Street, Wellington - HONEY: A sweet play with a bit of a crunch and a lingering after-taste

- reviewed by John Smythe

Joseph Harper is a unique new talent on the theatre scene. At first blush he seems to deliver his stories and musings as unadorned chat then theatrical elements emerge and soon it transpires every placing of a prop or light has been well thought through. It’s theatre by stealth.

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Whitirea Performance Centre, 25-27 Vivian Street, Wellington - HOT TOXIC LOVE: Songs that transport, entertain and move

- reviewed by Jo Hodgson

There are challenges in taking songs like this out of their show context and making them come alive without the backing of the full story but I am impressed by everyone’s brilliant storytelling. A lot of this programme is new to me, and I doubt if I am the only one, so clarity and diction are essential to the enjoyment of this new repertoire. The singers pull this off beautifully ...

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BATS, Wellington - MOVING STATIONERY: Extraordinary physical dexterity in wondrously wacky show

- reviewed by John Smythe

What makes this show brilliant is the wackily imaginative way he goes about it, and his extraordinary physical dexterity (his body locking and popping moves could win competitions if he went that way), not to mention the physics lesson implicit in his teabag dunking.

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BATS, Wellington - SHOULD WE STAY OR SHOULD WE GO?: A fun show

- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

With verve and plenty of good humour and some easy-going audience participation – and a spat or two as well as full-blown fight with a squashy banana – the pair present their cases.

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BATS, Wellington - DARK STARS: Balance needed to light up Dark Stars

- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

On opening night Jonathan Council overestimated the size of the Bats auditorium and underestimated the shattering power of his voice. When he finds the right balance, it will be a riveting performance and fascinating play.

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Circa Two, Wellington - MEETING KARPOVSKY: Performances of a Lifetime

- reviewed by Garth Wilshere

I was delighted to catch this play years after it was last staged here.

It was intriguingly conceived by the performers, the redoubtableHelen Moulderand dance/ballet legend Sir Jon Trimmer, with director Sue Rider.

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Museum Hotel, Tamburini Room, Wellington - DANCING IN THE WAKE: THE STORY OF LUCIA JOYCE: Voyeurism of the most satisfying kind

- reviewed by Deirdre Tarrant

Contrasts and contradictions abound and the underlying conflict between sex and the Catholic religion, between dreams and duty, between driving and being driven all end tragically for Lucia.

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

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