The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of The Bookbinder, Harold, The Feast 2014, and Bingo Board of Doom.

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

* * *

The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of The Bookbinder, Harold, The Feast 2014, and Bingo Board of Doom.

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

* * *

BLUE STOCKINGS: As enlightening as it is entertaining
The Long Hall, Roseneath, Wellington
- reviewed by John Smythe

Who knew? I didn’t. Having now seen this splendid play, it seems astonishing ‘The Battling of the Blue Stockings’ – note: battling not battle – (1896-1948) is not as lodged in our consciousness as the countless other events that brought fundamental change to Britain back when we still called it ‘home’.

------------------------------------------------------------------

HAROLD: Ambitious format sort of succeeds
BATS Theatre (Out Of Site), Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington
- reviewed by Shannon Friday

The thing that I like about Playshop is that I always want them to succeed, mainly because I see them trying out ideas as a group that I don’t see many others playing with.

And so it is with Harold. In Harold, Playshop’s two groups of eight performers each takes a turn at making a Harold. Do they succeed?

------------------------------------------------------------------

THE FEAST 2014: Unique explorations of craft, imagination, style and taste
The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
- reviewed by Johnny Givins

The Feast is three extraordinary pieces of creative theatre that have emerged from the 2014 Red Leap incubator programme. Each course is quite different in taste, smell, ingredients and cooking technique. The result is a creative meal of substance and delight.

------------------------------------------------------------------

THE FEAST 2014: Soup for the Imagination
The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
- reviewed by James Wenley

Now in its second year, The Feast has the potential to be one of the most important avenues for development of new work. Created through Red Leap Theatre’s incubator program, the company’s physical theatre devising process is used as a springboard for the development of new work from its participants.

------------------------------------------------------------------

HERE'S A THING: NZIF EDITION: Skill with grace and humour
BATS Theatre (Out Of Site), Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington
- reviewed by Shannon Friday

There are two levels of game going on in this show: first, is the performers doing your more-or-less standard short-form improv games like three-headed Broadway star, puppets, or improvising in rhymes. The second is the improvisers setting each other up – for success or failure as the whim takes them – by volunteering each other for the various games.

------------------------------------------------------------------

BINGO BOARD OF DOOM: Frenetic, controlled absurdity enthralls
BATS Theatre (Out Of Site), Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington
- reviewed by Alex Wilson

What sets this show apart is that in the corner sits an all-powerful bingo caller who can not only stop and start scenes seemingly on a whim, but is also armed with a bingo cage filled with bingo balls that relate to challenges on the eponymous bingo board of doom. Bingo.

------------------------------------------------------------------

HUMAN FRUIT BOWL: Impressed
Refinery Artspace, Nelson
- reviewed by Janet Whittington

The monologue often takes the form of constant repetitions, as if re-playing in her head, adding new information on at the end of each repetition. Not boring, but merely keeping the audience up with the ‘play’ as she muses on different aspects of past artistic lives, their models and muses. The conversation remains interesting and engaging for the mind of the audience, as she skips between several different threads of thought.

------------------------------------------------------------------

ANNE BOLEYN: Falls short but sufficiently watchable
Meteor Theatre, Hamilton
- reviewed by Richard Howard

The piece demands a solid stage presence, a strong expression of character and authority from the key players – these were powerful, sophisticated historical characters – which require a depth of understanding, character building and a developed performance skill that is largely missing in this cast.

------------------------------------------------------------------

STAG WEEKEND: Thoughtful, sensitive, witty, bawdy and unashamedly local
The Forge at The Court Theatre, Christchurch
- reviewed by Erin Harrington

The overall sense is that the most dangerous thing of all is the expectation itself to fulfil and enforce the sort of mythic, normative heterosexual masculinity that populates ads for beer and liquor and stories of hardass, pioneering adventurers – a fiction that informs, and is celebrated within, national fantasy while restricting other forms of feeling and expression.

------------------------------------------------------------------

BELLY DANCE EXTRAVAGANZA: Lavish and gorgeous belly dance
Hagley Open Stage, Christchurch
- reviewed by Emily Napolitano

Aziza performs with remarkable stamina, as she shimmies, vibrates and flutters her way through an extensive set of skilful and precise body isolations. Her veil technique is superb, as she creates lovely images and shapes with the silk. Her controlled and subtle manipulations of the light-as-air veil are gorgeous to watch. Aziza is also a polished performer, graciously dancing her way through sound system issues, warmly engaging with the audience and clearly enjoying herself and her art form.

------------------------------------------------------------------

IMPRINT: Confident young dancers in mix of short works
Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre, Auckland
- reviewed by Raewyn Whyte

Heidi Chen’s Feather, to music by Goldmund, is a longer work which feels complete in itself rather than being a fragment. The programme’s standout, in this work the dancer is completely attuned to the musical nuances and cadences of her score. There is an extraordinary fluidity to her movement, yet she manages to stop it in an instant while her loose cotton knit tunic keeps moving, or she collapses suddenly to the ground as if struck down, recovering by rolling to her feet and moving into the next sequence.

------------------------------------------------------------------

WHITE CLOUD: Far from flawless
Theatre Royal, Nelson
- reviewed by Gail Tresidder

The result of Tim being sole narrator for the Finn and Duncum family stories, is it is often somewhat confusing as to what and who belonged to which. Whispers my guest, “Who is this Ken he keeps on mentioning?” Like a majority of the audience, I would imagine, she doesn’t know that White Cloud originated as a larger production, and for much of the concert is puzzled.

------------------------------------------------------------------

THE BOOKBINDER: Creative storytelling at its best
St Peters at Founders Park, Nelson
- reviewed by Melanie Stewart

The story is told through a clever combination of narration, puppetry, shadows, and a pop-up storybook. McCubbin Howell plays all roles, flowing from one character to the other with ease, including manipulating countless props that represent a variety of people, objects and places.

------------------------------------------------------------------

THE STATUS OF BEING: provocation, polemicism, playfulness, physicality
Hannah Playhouse (previously Downstage), Wellington
- reviewed by Sam Trubridge

The really stand-out sequences occur in the third act when the dancers occupy individual movement spaces on stage, thrashing and dancing freely to the music with wonderful abandon. They collapse from time to time, falling always close enough to catch one another. As this desperate and jubilant sequence develops, the bodies condense, knotting together tighter and tighter, until they form a large embrace. There is something hopeful and incredibly beautiful here when the dancers, the audience, and the choreographer lose themselves in a moment and entertain some possibility that despite all the political angst - there is maybe something that can be done. But of course it must fall apart. So the knot of bodies separates as the dancers begin to tangle and climb on one another, maintaining elaborate conversations as they do.

------------------------------------------------------------------

BLACK FAGGOT: Brave and powerful with large doses of humour and humanity
Suter Theatre, Nelson
- reviewed by Gail Tresidder

Rave reviews from all over: two booked out performances here, the first ending with a stand-up ovation. A latish start – some wag called out “it must be island time” – and into the hurly-burly of Auckland Samoan life we catapult. No props, a bare stage, snatches of rhythm from hands and feet, with lighting to set the mood – and two very fine actors: Iaheto Ah Hi and Taofia Pelesasa.

------------------------------------------------------------------

OUT OF THE BOX HIP HOP SHOWCASE (2014): Way beyond the norm for hip hop
Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland
- reviewed by Kerry Wallis

‘Influencing Development’, choreographed by Joshua Cesan is a personal favourite of mine. Four dancers starting in a spotlight, one moves forward and is instantly manipulated by the other three dancers as if on a mechanical production line. A bigger group of male performers joins them and the production line becomes 12 strong. Cesan moves naturally down the line while being manipulated by all the performers. When the line repeats, one by one, the rest of the production line falls behind and they all use mechanical sounds to replicate the machinery. An absorbing beginning to change formation. The idea of influence continues well throughout the work and there are arrays of contrasting movements, which are appealing to the eye.

------------------------------------------------------------------

THE MALL: The comedy and horror of consumerism, commercialism and violence
Allen Hall Theatre, University of Otago, Dunedin
- reviewed by Alison Embleton

The main storyline follows Dean, a depressed and increasingly unstable chain cinema employee who works in the titular mall. Dean shares his inner thoughts and daily grind with the audience through diary entries. Frustrated by his lack of purpose and inability to motivate himself beyond basic tasks his story grows and morphs from mundane and bitterly comedic to utterly horrifying.

------------------------------------------------------------------

SPIEGELWORLD EMPIRE: Sexy, sumptuous, spectacular
Horncastle Hub at Horncastle Arena, Addington, Christchurch
- reviewed by Matt Powell

From the minute we walk into the beautifully appointed Spiegeltent, the performers are all around us, between us, and on top of us, inviting us to play with them as they dance, juggle, take selfies, and suggestively peel carrots. They are testing the boundaries of a fresh audience, yes, but also blurring the line between the show as rehearsed, and the instance of its performance. The stage itself is tiny, but we are drawn into it.

------------------------------------------------------------------

BACK OF THE BUS: Inspired and inspiring bus ride performance
Founders Heritage Park, Nelson
- reviewed by Janet Whittington

This performance is truly unique. Almost every patron is included in the performance at some stage, so is not for the faint hearted or the professional by-stander in life. The effect is very energising, most patrons chatting animatedly to new friends and strangers as the exited the bus. I see a growing audience for this calibre of interactive dance.

------------------------------------------------------------------

THE ROAD THAT WASN'T THERE: Multiple talents delight
Suter Theatre, Nelson
- reviewed by Adrienne Matthews

Essentially this is a tale about following a dream. Maggie, played by Elle Wootton, is thought of by the local community as being demented. She is variously called a “cartographic criminal” and “typographic terrorist” due to her habit of stealing maps from everywhere she can, including books in the local library, but we soon realise that all she is trying to do is find again a map of long ago that showed a paper road.

------------------------------------------------------------------

HELA: Clever, Compassionate and Concise
Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland
- reviewed by Sharu Delilkan

It appears as if the play has already begun as we file into Q’s Loft space. Solo actress Adura Onashile busily writes on the blackboard with her back facing us and occasionally turns around to mouth words to her ‘other actors’ on stage. Before long you find yourself sucked into Henrietta Lacks’ world, retold with absolute clarity and compassion by the astute and talented Onashile.

------------------------------------------------------------------

PERFECT PLACE: Icarian Heights
The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
- reviewed by Matt Baker

While there are no new stories under the sun, Colin Garlick's complete lack of an attempt to re-imagine, or at the very least thinly veil, one iota of the stories he has haphazardly drafted onto the page is frankly insulting, with the "stranger in a new world" stumbling over the "freedom of choice" tied together with a borderline plagiarised Tyler Durden-Mark Renton monologue.
http://www.theatreview.org.nz/reviews/review.php?id=7548

------------------------------------------------------------------

I’LL BE FINE: Like Woody Allen on speed
BATS Theatre (Out Of Site), Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

No one in a play or movie who goes on a road trip ever goes for the hell of it; there’s always an important discovery to be made, not about the trip but about the trip through life so far.

Ben Wilson dives head first into these well chartered waters in his first two-hander play with a couple of mates, Jude and Brian, leaving behind their misspent youthful lives in the fleshpots of Courtenay Place.

------------------------------------------------------------------

THE STATUS OF BEING: Striking, confronting, profound and delightful
4th Wall Theatre, New Plymouth
- reviewed by Holly Shanahan

It is important current work that this company are making; work that does not need to be confined in the box we call ‘contemporary dance’. It is theatrical, humorous, beautiful, manic, and strident. With messages that resonate and follow you home. Everyone should make time to see this company and this new work. Let yourself be surprised, swept up, and challenged.

------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Further information:

What began as a glorified blog by John Smythe has now become a major organ of communication, interaction and information that has created an online performing arts community by recording, critiquing, celebrating and debating NZ’s professional performing arts activity.

If you value Theatreview, and want to see it survive and grow to further serve the interests and needs of the performing arts community and their audiences, please join the Performing Arts Directory or offer a donation/koha