The latest Theatreview Weekly includes a review of Whistle and I’ll Come to You, The Menagerie, Annie, and Equivocation.

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

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The latest Theatreview Weekly includes a review of Whistle and I’ll Come to You, The Menagerie, Annie, and Equivocation.

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

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Fringe Bar, 26 Allen St, Wellington - THE MENAGERIE: Up-and-coming and offbeat performers
- reviewed by Deborah Eve Rea

The Menagerie is a pick’n’mix bag of vaudeville delights. The showcase began in November and producer Rachel Rouge is now presenting it monthly due to popular demand.

Tonight’s event is hosted by Jim Stanton whose delightful tongue-in-cheek is a perfect match to The Menagerie. Stanton is costumed beautifully to theme in a full length dress and corsetry, complete with a little dove side-kick in her hair. Stanton is, as always, a pro.

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - WINNERS: Fresh new talents to relish
- reviewed by Johnny Givins

Basement Theatre again opens its studio venue to recent graduates from Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School with a phenomenally energetic, creative and disciplined series of four one-actor performances called Winners!

Each piece was originally conceived as part of the 2013 Go Solo Season where third year students devised, wrote and performed a solo work (directed by Anya Tate-Manning). This show, directed by Luci Hare, introduces four of these fresh professional actors to Auckland ...

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St James Theatre, Wellington - ANNIE: Lavish production but cast on auto
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

Annie is Broadway’s answer to the West End’s Oliver! It has girls in an orphanage instead of boys in a workhouse, a cruel, drink sodden overseer, a rags-to-riches story and a dog called Sandy (played by Ramble).

It’s hard to imagine a contemporary musical, even one based on a cartoon strip, to have such indefatigable optimism as that expressed in Annie.

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Circa One, Wellington - EQUIVOCATION: Gunpowder plot is given theatrical fizz
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

Bill Cain’s intricately structured, entertaining but over-long comedy-drama about Shakespeare and the Gunpowder Plot has been given an exciting production by director Peter Hambleton, aided by Andrew Foster’s Globe-like thrust stage and Donna Jefferis’ superb costumes.

Equivocation is about “telling the truth in difficult times” and is concerned with Shakespeare being pressured by Sir Robert Cecil, King James’ Secretary of State, to write a play vilifying the conspirators who planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

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Circa One, Wellington - EQUIVOCATION: Rich, potent and rewarding

- reviewed by John Smythe

But the play is the thing that engages us most and the actors’ capacity to declare “I AM” this character, or another one (four of the six play multiple roles), is crucial to our getting it. Only once or twice does the acting overshadow the play, and sometimes sustained shouting denies more interesting textures. Otherwise the cast proves astonishingly adept at navigating the play’s complexities to make it all seem effortless. And they deliver the guts with due impact.

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Bruce Mason Centre, Auckland - COPPELIA: Delivered with aplomb
- reviewed by Raewyn Whyte

The Company seem to relish their accomplishment, and they certainly present it with flair and elegance, poise and confidence and pride. It would seem it is time for more challenging fare.

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St James Theatre, Wellington - ANNIE: Oozes enjoyment, fun and general positivity
- reviewed by Lucy O'Connor

Even before Annie starts, I feel nostalgic thanks to some members of the crowd who too are early. Little girls in dress ups and fairy costumes run about and smile infectiously, creating an air of innocence and fun. They start to rub off on even the un-cluckiest of people and I wish I could join them in frolicking around the St James Theatre. If only societal norms allowed!

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - LUNCHEON: Assured new talent offers engaging look at allure of high culture
- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton

The debut of playwright Aroha Awarau marks the emergence of a distinctive talent and highlights a growing trend among Maori artists asserting the freedom to move beyond specifically Maori issues and engage creatively with the wider world.

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BATS Theatre (Out Of Site), Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington - ALL YOUR WANTS AND NEEDS FULFILLED FOREVER: Playground Collective’s writing star of the show
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

As the lights dim at the start of All Your Wants and Needs Fulfilled Forever a computerised voice enthuses over the moment when a play is about to start, the most exciting part of any evening in the theatre. The voice has high hopes that tonight will be the night.

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Hannah Playhouse (previously Downstage), Wellington - EGLANTYNE: A story that enriches us all

- reviewed by John Smythe

It is a measure of our phallocentric culture and the history its guardians have chosen to promote that most of us have never heard of Eglantyne Jebb: the astonishingly determined social activist, researcher and reformer whose lasting legacies are the worldwide Save the Children organisation and The Declaration of the Rights of the Child. If she’d been a man she’d have been knighted then made a peer of the realm – or maybe not, given her humanity was apolitical and inclusive of all nationalities.

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The Lodge Hall at Ferrymead Heritage Park, Christchurch - WHISTLE AND I’LL COME TO YOU: Good Gothic ghost story could be further developed
- reviewed by Erin Harrington

Whistle and I’ll Come to You is a fine adaptation of M R James’ 1904 story ‘Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad’, a slight tale – almost an urban legend – that like so many of its time couples a small act of earthy transgression with a good helping of supernatural comeuppance.

Here, Ferrymead Heritage Park – a reconstruction of an Edwardian township just outside of central Christchurch – is recast as a quiet village in East Anglia, and we are late night visitors to the local lodge.

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

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