From February 2010, The Lumière Reader will publish from its all-new website. This existing website will remain online in an archival capacity until we relocate its content.
Te Karanga, K’Rd AucklandMarch 27 | Reviewed by Renee Liang
SMACKBANG THEATRE is an example of the No. 8 wire mentality: if it needs doing, do it yourself with what’s available and bit of the old Kiwi ingenuity. It’s a new theatre running on Thursday nights in a corner of the rather cosy art gallery/teahouse/radio station/tattoo studio run by the Te Karanga Trust on K’Rd.
BATS TheatreMarch 13-29 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst
THE PRESENCE of bouncers gives a club a certain atmosphere. They can be confrontational, welcoming, warning or sophisticated. To be admitted by the bouncers you have to be on the list. They lend a sense of propriety to an establishment.
Cross Street Studios, AucklandMarch 13 | Reviewed by Imogen Neale
A COMMON SIGHT?
People walking out of a theatre building, chin pressed into their collar bones, their hand/s in their hair (scratching or not) and their eyes glazed in introspection (for that little clue that would set the truth free).
Circa TheatreMarch 1-29 | Reviewed by Helen Sims
THE LIGHTS fade up on a young guy in stonewash jeans reading a Mario Puzo novel. He prowls restlessly around his modern apartment. This is Dennis Ziegler, an arrogant ‘trust fund baby’ in 1980s New York. The buzzer goes – it is his “friend” Warren Straub, another rich kid with low self esteem. He’s had a fight with his Dad, who’s kicked him out. In a moment of impulsive bravado he’s stolen $15,000 his father just happened to have lying about – for nefarious purposes no doubt. The rights or wrongs of stealing the money never really factor into Dennis and Warren’s conversations about the cash. Instead they debate what to do with it – finally settling on a plan that will entice Jessica, the object of Warren’s desire, over to Dennis’s apartment. The characters typify an era in which the young were encouraged to abandon values and loyalties in favour of getting ahead. They are selfish, aimless and confused.
NZ Arts Festival 2008, TSB ArenaMarch 13-16 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon
THE POWERFUL imagery of Honour Bound does not fade until long after the lights and sound-scape have died down, and the screes of viewers have left the space of TSB Arena. With this physical, mediated theatre piece The Sydney Opera House and Malthouse Theatre have together turned a tightly tuned, emotive and gripping work in which the sense of injustice is tangible, and nobody is exempted from its driven touch.
NZ Arts Festival 2008, St James TheatreMarch 12-15 | Reviewed by Shruti Navathe
TERO SAARINEN’s Borrowed Light opened at the St James Theatre on March 12 as part of this year’s International Arts Festival. The performance began with a sole dancer moving in silence and light as a community of singers, dancers and audience looked on from darkness. This set the mood of stark and eerie contrasts – a mood that underpinned the movements of the dancers, which were either airy and light or heavy and uncomfortable.
NZ Arts Festival 2008, Downstage TheatreMarch 8-16 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon
Where We Once Belonged is a stunning and haunting adaptation of Sia Figiel’s 1994 novel of the life (and death) of 1970s Samoa. Adaptor Dave Armstrong has taken segments of the novel to form a rich and mesmerising play; and one which retains the novel’s key elements. This Auckland Theatre Company/International Arts Festival co-production brings a timely, insightful and above all very funny exploration of the lives of young people growing up in Samoa. It gives voice to the choking influence of Western materialism, the legacy of colonialism and the fading memories of the ‘we’ past.
NZ Arts Festival 2008, Soundings TheatreMarch 6-16 | Reviewed by Helen Sims
The Dentist’s Chair marks a change in style for the Indian Ink Theatre Company. Their trademark mask work is still present, although not for all characters, but rather than focusing on Indian figures, the characters are ethnically nondescript. There are no heroes in the story, indeed, the philosophy of the piece is that “We can learn as much from our heroes as our monsters”. Instead the play focuses on a pitiable dentist who has lost his nerve, Albert Southwick, and his nagging wife and practice assistant, Judy. Albert is fascinated with dentist related history, however remotely related. This retrospectively accounts for the rather delightfully bizarre opening of the play – two characters in period costume with thick Southern American lower class accents enter trying to sell the audience fruit. They are William Kemmler and his fiancée Tilly. They banter with the audience on stage light-heartedly until William murders Tilly with an axe for being unfaithful. This results in him being the first man to go to the electric hair, apparently invented by a dentist, rather than hung. A quick scene change reveals Albert has been telling this tale to a petrified patient in the chair.
NZ Arts Festival 2008, Opera HouseMarch 10-16 | Reviewed by Shruti Navathe
ONE OF THE first things that caught my attention as I took my seat at the opening performance of Traces at The Opera house, Wellington was the image projected behind the stage set up. I’d noticed a video camera with some trepidation as I entered the hall (I have an abiding dislike of CCTVs) and it was comforting to realise that the camera was projecting onto the screen inside as part of the performance, and not as part of Kerry Prendergast’s panoptic plan to keep the riff-raff out of the festival.
NZ Arts Festival 2008, Michael Fowler CentreMarch 7-9 | Reviewed by Shruti Navathe
I ARRIVED at the opening performance of Chunky Move’s Glow – part of this year’s dance contribution to the New Zealand International Arts Festival – intrigued and prepared to be impressed. Wonderfully, I was not disappointed. Glow is a highly successful exploration of the relationship between matter; in this case a sole organic being, and a completely inorganic environment. Chunky Move mines this relationship with depth and subtlety.
NZ Arts Festival 2008, Soundings TheatreFeb 23/28; Mar 1/3/8 | Reviewed by Helen Sims
Lifeboat tells the inspirational story of survival of two very different girls after the boat that is evacuating them from Britain in World War II sinks after being torpedoed by the Germans. The play is based on the real life story of Bess Walder and Beth Cummings and the voyage of the boat the City of Benares that departed Liverpool bound for Canada on the 13th of September 1940. It is a tribute to their survival and also to the passengers who lost their lives (248 of the 406 passengers and crew, including 77 of the 90 children on board). The sinking of the boat is an important historical event in the context of WWII, as the operation of the Children’s Overseas Resettlement Board was immediately ceased after it sank. However, in compiling this story, Nicola McCartney has focused on the personal insights of Bess and Beth to offer a unique perspective on both the war and the tragedy.
The Basement (fmr. Silo)March 6-9 | Reviewed by Imogen Neale
WHAT IS LOVE? Or more to the contemporary point, what is LUV?
Is it simply a quick way to txt, msn, pxt or post, ‘love’?
Perhaps.
Fringe 2008, Good Luck BarFeb 24-29 | Reviewed by Helen Sims
MEL DODGE’s solo piece for the Fringe centres around a character called Sophie, a bar manager and modern day romantic and a diverse range of characters (all played by Dodge). Interspersed with scenes set in the bar where Sophie works (Good Luck forms a good back drop for this) are stylised scenes in which Dodge mimes putting on a pair of long gloves (a Jane Austen lady preparing for a ball? A heart surgeon preparing for surgery?) and also divines audience member’s romantic history in a BBC style accent, potentially indicating she is channelling Austen herself. There are references to the past and Austen’s characters, such as when a Mr Darcy turns out to be a Mr Wickham, and also to current dating practices, such as facebooking your exes.
NZ Arts Festival 2008, Circa TheatreFeb 23-May 3 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon
ROGER HALL’s Who Wants to be 100?, is apparently one of the “fastest selling plays” in New Zealand’s history. An extremely depressing fact this; but at least the play is getting people into theatres. Director Ross Jolly invites us to consider whether this is Hall’s “best play yet, his funniest, darkest comedy;” and if the majority answer is yes then at least from Who Wants to be 100? we can glean a simple and effective formula of mass appeal. Make bawdy jokes, talk about poos, and keep the cast firmly rooted in one of the apparently dying bastions of the male domain; while highlighting and keenly reinforcing topical cultural issues.
NZ Arts Festival 2008, St James TheatreMarch 4-5 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon
Bro’Town Live on Stage proudly proclaims itself the “world’s first reality stage show documentary… about a cartoon!” And this title is more than apt; the show is a mix of cross-genre, cartoon-like, real life TV commentary; narrated principally by creators David Fane and Oscar Kightley, with fellow Naked Samoans Mario Gaoa and Shimpal Lelisi as comedic support. Despite a low energy performance and an obvious lack of preparation (the Live on Stage part meant script-in-hand and missed cues) the Bro’Town story gained copious laughter and encouragement from the audience, and was very high in feel-good factor.
BATS TheatreMarch 1-8 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst
PHILIP Braithwaite’s latest play imagines the retelling of an old biblical legend full of adultery, prophecy and dependence on spiritual guidance. The programme notes explain that it ‘questions our sense of values, and asks whether there is such a thing as justice.’
Fringe 2008, Toi Poneke Wgtn Arts CentreFeb 28-March 1 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst
Art From Whoa to Go is like going to a slide show at your favourite eccentric aunt’s. It’s all a bit weird, but her enthusiasm for her subject is infectious, even if you haven’t got a clue what she’s talking about.
Auckland Town Hall, THE EDGEMarch 1-6 | Reviewed by Renee Liang
Beyond the Blue is a devised theatre piece that takes “courage as the initial starting point”. It certainly doesn’t end there. As a piece of physical theatre, it is impressive: twelve bodies in constant motion, moving through a combination of improvisation, acrobatics, dance and ensemble singing for over an hour. Even for trained dancers this would take stamina; we are told that young actresses that make up the cast are, for the most part, on their first real theatre outing. And they are young: for the most part these women are under twenty, and some are still at school.
NZ Arts Festival 2008, Downstage TheatreFeb 27-March 4 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon
DESCRIBED as a play “set amidst the maelstrom of the 1981 Springbok Tour,” Te Karakia is more of an exploration of personal relations, an uncovering of the complexities of personal politics and a view of the formative influences on the lives of New Zealanders than an overtly political depiction of the rugby tour. The dominance of the theme of Christianity is perhaps more evident than that of rugby: the moment you enter the space of Downstage you are struck by the sight of three large crosses. These double as rough telephone poles to place and date the play in rural 1980s New Zealand, but their religious overtones are clear. A symbolic, gravel-filled line which splits the length of the stage is the only immediate hint at the presence of divisive Springbok Tour in the lives of the characters on stage.
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