A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including: Birth/Death, Game of Things, Sydney Bridge Upside Down, and Nick: an Accidental Hero.

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: Birth/Death, Game of Things, Sydney Bridge Upside Down, and Nick: an Accidental Hero.

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

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Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre, Auckland - BIRTH/DEATH: Well-wrought production offers plenty to chew over
- reviewed by Poppy Haynes

As I wander up to the Musgrove Studio on opening night, I wonder how current the plays will feel – after all, both are set in or around the seventeenth century and Churchill’s Vinegar Tom is nearly forty years old. I return home several hours later to the news that Julia Gillard, subject of recent personal abuse, has been rolled, a missing woman’s body had been discovered in Northland and – despite Wendy Davis’s ten-hour filibuster – Texas has passed new abortion restrictions that will close most of the state’s abortion clinics. It turns out 1970s feminist Epic theatre still feels pretty current.

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BATS - Out Of Site - Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington - GAME OF THINGS: Absolutely heartening and enjoyably energetic
- reviewed by Maraea Rakuraku

Still traumatised by THAT episode of Season 3 and having not really made it through the third book, A Storm of Swords, I was looking forward to Game of Things and I am not disappointed. It is fun. Part of that is aided along by an opening night’s good-natured crowd of largely 20 somethings.

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Downstage Theatre, Wellington - SYDNEY BRIDGE UPSIDE DOWN: Disturbing
- reviewed by Maraea Rakuraku

This is a sinister coming-of-age story and I don’t say that lightly. There are some parts where I find myself physically shrinking into my seat and hiding behind hands. There is something very uneasy about this story and I think it’s because it feeds into a type of truth that exists in New Zild, and on reflection I actually don’t think a story like this could be as potent anywhere else but here, with our picturesque scenery hiding sinister undertones.

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Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, The Edge, Auckland - SHORT+SWEET 2013 – THEATRE – WEEK 2: A truly professional evening of bona fide entertainment
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

Is it already an entire year since the Herald Theatre was last overrun with enterprising crews of capable, spirited practitioners*? Actually not quite: 2012’s programme played in September/August. No matter.

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BATS - Out Of Site - Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington - NICK: AN ACCIDENTAL HERO: Confronting our fortune, fears and fragility in body and soul
- reviewed by Lucy O'Connor

A rigid metal chair sits in the middle of a boxed off space. From what I know, this piece is about a stroke victim who suffers locked in syndrome. What a clever parallel - stuck in a box with nowhere to go.

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - FOB: Hopeful and quite sincere takeaway message
- reviewed by Joselyn Khor

The show’s programme, designed like an Asian take-out menu, provides food for thought on Chinese takeaways of the deep-fried variety – possibly seen as tasty and fulfilling physical needs on a superficial level but artery clogging beneath the surface.

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Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, The Edge, Auckland - SHORT+SWEET 2013 – THEATRE – WILDCARD: A fruitful night
- reviewed by Joselyn Khor

Short + Sweet Theatre’s Wildcard offers newer participants the chance to prove themselves in front of an expectant crowd. For this year’s instalment the performers, directors and writers alike prove they are capable of living up to this challenge.

Most of the stories are told with much enthusiasm and heart from a diverse range of actors.

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The Riverbank Centre, Whangarei - DANCING IN THE WAKE: THE STORY OF LUCIA JOYCE: A female sensibility
- reviewed by David Stevens

I promise you, the felicities are many, glittering jewels, and the subject matter is, to me, quite fascinating. The dance sequences are extraordinarily good, much of the dialogue is splendid, and the incorporation of Joyce’s great line “they were Jung and easily Freudened” suggests we are dealing with unique minds. I was so impressed with the dancing of Sacha Copland and the two other actors acquit themselves splendidly as well. Jan Bolwell easily moves between her two characters (Lucia when young and Norah, Joyce’s wife) in an excellent performance, it becomes quite moving. There is a ravishing early moment when both the older and young Lucia’s dance in unison that is most affecting. Similarly, John Smythe, who has the difficult task of playing three remarkable men - Jung, Beckett and Joyce - and he delineates each with considerable skill.

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Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland - THE PITCHFORK DISNEY: Well pitched
- reviewed by Matt Baker

It’s taken Todd Emerson seven years to mount The Pitchfork Disney, and it’s easy to see why the play stuck with him after his initial reading of it. Premiering in England in 1991, the play is considered a first in the arrival of the “in-yer-face” generation of playwrights, including Mark Ravenhill, Sarah Kane, and Anthony Neilson.

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Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland - THE PITCHFORK DISNEY: A weighty, darkly warped night
- reviewed by Stephen Austin

Sophie Roberts’ direction of this deeply horrific monologue-laden script lands some pretty meaty punches at our world caught up in its own narcissistic self-destruction and obsessions with disposability of culture – there’s even a dig at our own reasons for attending theatre as grotesque spectacle, that slides easily across to other modern media.

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

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