Theatreview Weekly: 25/09/2014
25 Sep 2014
The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of Don Giovanni, Beauty and the Bro, Forward and Beneath, and Domestic Goddess.
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Theatreview
The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of Don Giovanni, Beauty and the Bro, Forward and Beneath, and Domestic Goddess.
See more recent reviews at theatreview.org, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory.
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FORWARD AND BENEATH: Uncomfortable realities bring key questions to the fore
Hagley Open Stage, Christchurch
- reviewed by Emily Napolitano
There are no props; the stage is clean, bleak and starkly lit, the costumes minimalistic. As the dancers rise out of their chairs and begin to move, you realize that they are also utterly vulnerable, we can see them from all sides. They cannot avoid our gaze. There is no hiding in the wings for them, no costume changes backstage. They are face to face with us and neither we nor they can escape. Everything happens in front of us, and we gain a tiny insight into the lives of those in prison, constantly surrounded by watchers.
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DON GIOVANNI: Striking set sizzles
ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland
- reviewed by Sharu Delilkan
When I heard that the NZ Opera was finally staging Don Giovanni, after it had been performed at the Christchurch Arts Festival last year, I was adamant not to miss this larger than life production.
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SHORT + SWEET DANCE - FINAL/GALA SHOWCASE: Talents acknowledged
TAPAC - The Auckland Performing Arts Centre, Auckland
- reviewed by Sue Cheesman
Opaque choreographed by Vivian Aue is a stunning start to the evening. The very strong and well-crafted dance piece cleverly uses canon, unison and different tableaux. Effective use of breath and body percussion wows the house. This piece builds in intensity and provides a good opportunity for all the male performers to show off their range of physical skills in dives, rolls, leaps, jumps and turns. The end of the work heralds a change of mood, as the male cast turns into finger clicking smooth operators dancing to a very laid back version of a Michael Jackson number. Old fashioned romance is in the air as they sashay a woman across stage to woo her. Danced assuredly by nine male performers, this work certainly deserved its winning of Best Emerging Artist, Best Choreographer and the People’s Choice Awards.
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SHORT + SWEET DANCE 2014 - PROGRAMME 2: More than one potential winner
TAPAC - The Auckland Performing Arts Centre, Auckland
- reviewed by Briar Wilson
Aruna Po-Ching dances Bended – referring to the reality of a 1970’s P.I woman with bipolar disease, and in my view succeeds wonderfully. She uses Pacific cultural dance (Hawaiian) to show us the ups and downs of a sufferer, struggling with fright, extrovert interludes, anger and hopelessness. However she can also enjoy flirting. The theme is so well depicted using her own dance vocabulary that I voted this piece to go through to the final night.
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DOMESTIC GODDESSES: Dancing for sheer enjoyment
Ferrymead Friendly Societies Hall, Christchurch - Canterbury
- reviewed by Emily Napolitano
Quirky music choices paired with distinctive contemporary, elegant partnering and jazzy jive dance styles keep you on the edge of your seat and grinning from ear to ear. Highlights of the evening include the technical mastery and gorgeous feet of Sean James and the gritty and highly energetic "Who wears the pants," choreographed by Fleur de Thier.
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THE WILD HUNT: A parable of adolescence
442, Christchurch - Canterbury
- reviewed by Erin Harrington
The antagonists of the piece are three young women whose hilarious renditions of boorish, fat, black-suited businessmen verge on a combination of Wall Street and The Muppets’ Swedish Chef. They madly shuffle paperwork, boo and cheer and nonsensical financial reports, slam back coffees, and bray at the rugby before finally moving out of their rigid corporate world in an attempt to annex and control the untempered, desirous and raw space of the wild.
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ROYALS OF KIHIKIHI: A good introduction to a promising young playwright
Q Theatre, The Vault, Auckland
- reviewed by Janet McAllister
In a great touch, the first light seen in this real-time apres-funeral dramedy is the flickering blue of a television. Semi-comatose, Violet watches the Kardashian sisters fight. Later, she models her communication strategies on the reality TV stars, but Khloe's scriptwriters would struggle to keep up with the memorable insults that playwright Samuel Christopher gives his family of characters.
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DON GIOVANNI: Nightclub setting for Opera Don makes sense
ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland
- reviewed by William Dart
From the start, New Zealand Opera's Don Giovanni presented the mix of tragedy and comedy stipulated in the opera's description as "dramma giocoso" (playful drama). Wyn Davies immediately captured its emotional ambivalence in a sharply paced overture from a spruce Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.
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WILD BEES: 12:00 PM Wednesday Sep 17, 2014 Trade union battle brilliantly captures foray into brave new world
The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton
Against the mixture of fantasy and farce served up by the current election campaign, Wild Bees offers a bracingly realistic appraisal of the watershed years when Rogernomics ushered in a brave new world of asset sales and employment contracts.
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BEAUTY AND THE BRO – MEL PARSONS AND JAMES NOKISE: A fine double bill indeed
The Mussel Inn, Onekaka (near Takaka), Nelson
- reviewed by Antony Hodgson
James' act, Soso Gangster, jumps wildly from topic to topic with stories which must be prepared material but flow out of the heckles and comments from the crowd so smoothly that he simply runs with whatever comes his way. This is not a show where we can just sit back and observe the show, as James brings his material right into the here and now, engaging with every comment that is dished up from the floor.
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DON GIOVANNI: A great deal to enjoy, ponder and marvel at
ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland
- reviewed by Penny Dodd
It is no mean feat to devise a new production of such a work, in modern dress, with the contemporary social order imposing on the 1787 world of noblemen and servants. Mostly it works really well. My only concerns are that Mozart’s noble musical characterisation of Donna Elvira jars with the modern young woman in jeans and boots, and the questions raised by the surprise twist at the end.
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LASHINGS OF WHIPPED CREAM: Renders the extraordinary intriguingly ordinary
BATS Theatre (Out Of Site), Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington
- reviewed by John Smythe
Having seen the original version by writer/performer Fiona Samuel 21 years ago, the Sara Wiseman in the role nine years ago, I had some misgivings about ‘Mistress Dominique’, the supposedly teenage dominatrix, being played by a drag queen. But Ricky Beirao’s ‘Rhubarb Rouge’ makes it work.
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BARNIE DUNCAN IN … HIM: Contemplative study of introspective isolation
The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
- reviewed by Nik Smythe
Out from his concealed cocoon of current affairs and into this weird, slightly awkward contained environment emerges …him. Tenderly directed by Geoff Pinfield, Barnie Duncan’s conceptual character study delivers what it says on the box: an exquisite and immersive exploration into the reclusive world of a newspaper hoarder.
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BARNIE DUNCAN IN … HIM: And us
The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
- reviewed by Matt Baker
Tuesday 16th September 2014: a day like no other. For one, it was the only opportunity to see that evening's performance by Barnie Duncan. While this is always true of the transient pleasure of all theatre, it is reinforced in ...him, as that day's newspaper held the cryptic key to this ingenious, ever-evolving theatrical experience.
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See more recent reviews at theatreview.org.nz, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory
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