Here is a selection of recent reviews from theatreview.org.nz from the last week.

Theatreview is the New Zealand Performing Arts Review & Directory

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Here is a selection of recent reviews from theatreview.org.nz from the last week.

Theatreview is the New Zealand Performing Arts Review & Directory

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Fortune Theatre, Dunedin
MATES & LOVERS: Living history told fluidly with care and love
- reviewed by Patrick Davies

Simplicity and beauty are wonderful things on stage and both performers (Simon K. Leary and Paora Taurima) move swiftly and carefully, and with great regard for the lives they portray. Sometimes screaming like diva, sometimes rough and tumble ...

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Opera House, Wellington
HEAR TO SEE: The old-fashioned brilliance of magical tricks
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy" is roughly what Ollie (Robert Hartley), the teenage hero obsessed with video games, learns in Hear to See, the flagship production of Capital E's National Arts Festival. It was received with rapturous applause on Saturday.

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Globe Theatre, Dunedin
SUNDAY ROAST: Horror-flavoured comedy a matter of taste
- reviewed by Sharon Matthews

Sunday Roast is best described as a very black comedy; a twisted satire on middle-class New Zealand family values. It is a fast-paced and funny farce about a rural family, sibling rivalry, and meat.

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BATS, Wellington
THE CHATHAMS - WE'RE F#!KING SICK OF THE SILENCE: Random entertainment lacks purpose
- reviewed by John Smythe

The glib gag would be that The Chathams is a chat with a couple of hams but they're better actors than that, even if one does play a pig. The show is, however, an illustrated talk about their trip to the Chatham Islands intercut with some funny sketches.

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NZ Portrait Gallery, Shed 11, Queen's Wharf, Wellington
2 DIMENSIONAL LIFE OF HER: Pretentiously obscure or a valid discussion-starter?
- reviewed by John Smythe

This work of audio-visual animation, puppetry and performance art is unusually abstract for a children's festival show.

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Ilott Green by Capital E (70 Cable St if wet), Wellington
A CURIOUS GAME: Whacky musical squares
- reviewed by John Smythe

The concrete floor of 70 Cable Street - the wet-weather venue for this second 'Born in a Taxi' contribution to the festival - looks most uninviting but today's busloads of children don't seem to care. They buzz in anticipation.

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Maidment, Auckland
POOR BOY: Macabre gloom in a minor key
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

On his seventh birthday, Jeremy 'Jem' Glass ... is found passed out on a zebra crossing. Upon awaking he has a completely new personality, calling himself 'Danny' and failing to acknowledge his own family. Throughout the play Jem is accompanied by the ghost of the real Danny ...

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Globe Theatre, Dunedin
I HEART 5, 6, 7, 8: Very Fringe!
reviewed by Lyne Pringle

This band of emerging Auckland based choreographers and dancers bring their own brand of dance to the Globe Theatre - a dusty and distinguished repository of Dunedin theatre history.

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Maidment, Auckland
POOR BOY: Great, but the fun's missing
- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton

This sumptuously visual, boldly experiment production draws inspiration from the music of Tim Finn and features hauntingly beautiful arrangements of classic Split Enz hits as well as lesser-known songs from Finn's solo albums.

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The Theatre As Is, Dunedin
ONCE WAS: Illumination through shadow finds Theatre at its best
- reviewed by Patrick Davies

The performance is presented in four sections / scenes / acts and each is a well developed and layered playing in the space between the real / unreal; memory / performance; and future / history. Each section is also presented in its own world of theatrical reality.

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