A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including: Merely to be Normal… Season Two, Ivy – Saviour of the Dinosaur!, and Hairy Maclary and Friends.

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: Merely to be Normal… Season Two, Ivy – Saviour of the Dinosaur!, and Hairy Maclary and Friends.

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

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Downstage Theatre, Wellington - IVY – SAVIOUR OF THE DINOSAUR!: Cleaning lady polishes off disaster

- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

There's something strange happening at the museum. A party of tourists has gone missing. They are discovered being an audience for the irrepressible Ivy. She's the museum cleaner with a pommie accent who keeps her cleaning gear and various objects one suspects she oughtn't to have, such as Sir Ed's ice pick, in the cluttered basement.

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Studio 77, VUW, Wellington - MERELY TO BE NORMAL… SEASON TWO: Some good new directing talent coming through

- reviewed by John Smythe

If the Season One trio was more about distinguishing reality from fantasy, the plays that make up Season Two are more clearly aligned to the umbrella title, Merely To Be Normal. Most have been trimmed to meet the time and resource specifications necessarily imposed in this Honours level exercise.

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Opera House, Wellington - HAIRY MACLARY AND FRIENDS: Happy leap from page to stage

- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

After 30 years NZ writer Lynley Dodds’ stories about Hairy Maclary and all his friends are as popular as ever. And with her books being published in numerous countries and the stage show being a hit in Edinburgh and Australia, Hairy Maclary has become well known internationally.

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Centrepoint, Palmerston North - PENINSULA: Fluent, funny, intelligent, evocative, multi-layered story-telling
- reviewed by Richard Mays

“We want a story that starts out with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax” is a quote about movie-making attributed to Hollywood director Sam Goldwyn of MGM.

In a prescient precursor to the quakes that shook the city on Sunday, Peninsula director Paul McLaughlin could have been reading from Goldwyn’s handbook by giving Centrepoint’s new production [of Gary Henderson’s award-winning play] a cinematic style launch worthy of a big screen blockbuster.

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Maidment, Auckland - THE HERETIC: Pleasantly controversial

- reviewed by Matt Baker

Regardless of whether one believes in it or not, climate change is undoubtedly a hot topic, and British playwright Richard Bean has clearly done his homework on the subject. While The Heretic could easily be a vehicle for playwright pontification, there is nothing terribly dogmatic in Bean’s writing, nor is the character of Dr. Diane Cassell by any means elevated to anything other than scientist, lecturer, and mother.

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Whitireia Performance Centre, 25-27 Vivian Street, Wellington - ONEIRONAUT: THE DREAM TRAVELLER: A fascinating piece of theatre

- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

What dreams are made of is a question that has occupied the minds of people since the beginning of civilisation. It has also been occupying the minds of 17 young actors from Long Cloud Youth Theatre as part of the devised work Oneironaut.

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Theatre Royal, Nelson - BADJELLY THE WITCH: Enchanting delight
- reviewed by Gail Tresidder

Streaming in to the Theatre Royal for this creation of one of the most popular of all magical stories, are children of all ages from 2 to 92. Many are dressed for the occasion in sparkling dresses or black flowing robes, and witches hats are prominent. The auditorium buzzes with excitement.

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Centrepoint, Palmerston North - PENINSULA: A smooth assurance and a richness of interactions
- reviewed by John Ross

Four school-age kids and their dog are getting along happily enough, scarcely aware of tensions among their restless, frustrated parents. The school-teacher who comes to their one-teacher school means well, mostly does well, yet serves as a catalyst for crap happening. Mostly well-meaning individuals get things wrong; a kind of innocence goes down the dunny.

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Maidment, Auckland - THE HERETIC: Climatic wit in science farce

- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton

The impact of the satire is somewhat blunted by a crude dualism in which climate change activists are dishonest, self-serving and incompetent while the sceptical heretic never wavers in her devotion to the exalted realm of pure science.

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Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland - TU: Tu latest to show war's impact on Maori life
- reviewed by Janet McAllister

Participation in 20th century international conflicts is a recurring topic in Maori theatre. In the past two years Auckland has seen at least five Maori productions (written over the past two decades) set during World War I, World War II (particularly the Maori Battalion in Italy) and Vietnam.

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St James Theatre, Wellington - SWAN LAKE - THE ROYAL NZ BALLET: Superb show for ballet's birthday
- reviewed by Ann Hunt

A more fitting tribute to the Royal New Zealand Ballet's 60th anniversary than this stunning Swan Lake would be hard to imagine. It is choreographer Russell Kerr's fourth production and they get better every time.

What would be the feather in the company's cap if it were not the jewel in its crown, is the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra which accompanies the Wellington season.

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Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland - TU: Powerful homage
- reviewed by Tamati Patuwai

Wellington-based theatre ensemble Tawata Productions opened TU last night at Q Theatre’s Rangatira. This 2013 Auckland season sees some new players peppered throughout the many original cast members, giving an exciting collection of talents.

Hone Kouka, now into his third decade of theatre composition, has written and directed a wonderful kaupapa of unique Maori heritage.

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Maidment, Auckland - THE HERETIC: Thought-provoking, lively and stylish

- reviewed by Heidi North-Bailey

Bean’s play is rather unrelenting in its portrayal of the youthful generation as passionate, but largely emotion-driven activists. Not to mention the scorn with which he views the figure-bending and money-driven scientists that surround Dr Cassell. Only she, as the pure voice of reason can be the clear hero of the piece.

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Downstage Theatre, Wellington - IVY – SAVIOUR OF THE DINOSAUR!: High quality, intelligent theatre for children or adults
- reviewed by Charlotte Simmonds

The entire aesthetic of the show is exquisite, from the inventive set and props to the costumes, the lighting that appears in such interesting places and the music, which almost has me tearfully sniffling as much as all those astronaut films do when Armstrong steps onto the moon.

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St James Theatre, Wellington - SWAN LAKE - THE ROYAL NZ BALLET: Cause for celebration

- reviewed by Lyne Pringle

Gillian Murphy is once again outstanding, completely transformed from the lithe and trembling Odette into a serpentine temptress. She tends to draw out sequences and use her focus and eye-line to great effect, to draw the audience into the palm of her articulate hand. The drama of the scene sizzles with virtuoso variations, even some extra arms thrown into the famous fouette sequence.

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Fortune Theatre Studio, Dunedin - WHY ARE MY PARENTS SO BORING?: Delight, horror and empathy
- reviewed by Kimberley Buchan

The show is in the style of a silent movie and is jam packed full of the clowning aspects of this genre. The energy and overblown facial expressions of all three actors are received well by the sizable first audience. The actors have good timing and are able to handle any small mishap with seamless wit. The formulaic structure of this style of play would benefit from the use of the rule of threes.

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Whitireia Performance Centre, 25-27 Vivian Street, Wellington - ONEIRONAUT: THE DREAM TRAVELLER: Astonishingly beautiful
- reviewed by Charlotte Simmonds

Clever techniques are used to give the audience the experience of different dream ‘deliveries’: there is the kind of dream you are actively a part of; the kind of dream you are a mere observer to, unable to interact with anything that is happening; the kind of dream where you are observing yourself; the sorts of dreams that suddenly somehow switch and become a second dream and yet manage to do so fluidly.

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Bodega, 101 Ghuznee Street, Wellington - ZOMBURLESQUE: Dark, funny, clever: both offensive and enjoyable
- reviewed by Maryanne Cathro

While I admire many aspects of this original and seductive show, I am uncomfortably aware that mostly we are watching very pretty girls dance and take off their clothes under the control of a voluble male compere, who is unrelievedly misogynistic in his persona and choice of jokes. Interestingly, my informal poll at half time of audience members involved in the burlesque scene in Wellington reveals similar feelings, albeit while universally admitting that they’re enjoying it nevertheless.

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Opera House, Wellington - HAIRY MACLARY AND FRIENDS: Why make a Kiwi icon so British?
- reviewed by Charlotte Simmonds

For shame, New Zealand! Why has a company from the United Kingdom created this show? When we are so dowsed and drenched and drowned in British children’s literature, and hold so few books of our own that can truly hold their own on international bookshelves, why must an overseas company now take possession of our exported heritage for us to import back again? Why do Miss Plum and Sam Stone use so many Britishisms instead of New Zealandisms? Why are they British at all?

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Crystal Palace Theatre, Mount Eden, Auckland - HELL’S TEETH: More histrionic melodrama than intimate intensity

- reviewed by Nik Smythe

This is essentially the second draft of the company’s foray into this neo-political tale of the breakdown of society as we know it, and the resulting desperate adventure of the few remaining survivors on the run together, though not in much agreement about from whom they’re running, or to where.

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Gryphon, Wellington - RIGHT DISHONOURABLE: Much to applaud and support
- reviewed by Michael Gilchrist

The story is set in the mythical country of Freedonia, which despite a few stray North American accents, seems to resemble Aotearoa fairly closely, not least because it is the position of Prime Minister rather than the Presidency which is at stake.

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Gryphon, Wellington - RIGHT DISHONOURABLE: Politicians making a song and dance

- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

There has been quite a proliferation of home grown musicals in Wellington this year. And while Backyard Productions Right Dishonourable may not be the best ever written it has much to commend it.

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Gryphon, Wellington - THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF!: Children's show works on several levels

- reviewed by Ewen Coleman

It is rare to find modern children's shows as interactive as this one, yet writer director Moana Ete has put together a production that ticks all the right boxes for a highly successful children's show.

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

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