The nomaic Jacob Perkins, hailing from Portland, currently in New Zealand, and about to move to Paris, talks to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM about his EP, The Birds and the Beasties.

Six man vocal and percussion ensemble Lo Cňr de la Plana, hailing from Marseille, featured at this year’s glorious WOMAD. CATHERINE BISLEY’s words and images captured their performance.

Originally published in 1969, recent Nobel Prize Laureate J.M.G. Le Clezio’s novel ‘The Book of Flights’ has been re-released. By MATT MCGREGOR.

APPARENTLY it’s now possible, forty years after the first release of The Book of Flights (Random House, $29.99), to see experimental fiction, like Marxism, feminism, political protests and disco, as a mildly embarrassing historical quirk. That, at least, was the angle taken by journalists after the French novelist J.M.G Le Clezio won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year. Like American writers William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon, Le Clezio become known in the sixties and seventies for writing so-called impossible fictions: the plot-less, character-less, non-serious, self-referential iconoclastic frame-breakers that tended to make unwary readers hiff their editions across the room. In the late 1970s, however, Le Clezio’s style shifted. He started writing in an increasingly linear, referential style; and like Woody Allen’s “early, funny ones,” French readers seemed to prefer these recent, clearly plotted novels. Before he won the Nobel Prize it seemed like these works might be his legacy.

BATS Theatre
April 15-May 2 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

WILD DUCK Productions, under the direction of David Lawrence, have updated and revised Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler for their production at BATS to place the characters in current day Wellington. As part of this re-visioning Hedda becomes a bored and somewhat unstable housewife with strong colonial roots – and a pair of pistols to match. The essentials of Ibsen’s original are all there – the recent marriage of Hedda to a kind but boring and naive intellectual (Jörgen/George Tesman), interrupted by the appearance of her mousy school acquaintance, Thea Elvsted who has been assisting Eljert (Eliot) Lřvberg, Hedda’s former love and Jorgen’s, rival with the follow up to his acclaimed book. George’s interfering but well-meaning Aunt Julia is present (although changed to his sister) and so is Max Brack, the slippery lawyer who lives next door (a judge in the original).

Delivering one of best live shows of 2008, Okkervil River return to New Zealand for two encore dates in May. BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM interviews the band’s frontman Will Sheff.

Philip Patston is an ex-gay, ex-disabled, ex-vegetarian, ex-comedian about to perform at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival in May. RENEE LIANG speaks to him about how he invents himself.

By C.K. Stead
AUP, $59.99 | Reviewed by Sarah Jane Barnett

‘I HAVE tried, on the whole, to represent my own history as it occurred, and not make it look better, or myself wiser, more mature, more adroit, than I was at the time.’

C.K.(Christian Karlson) Stead was born in Auckland in 1932 and is considered by many to be New Zealand’s greatest living poet. A student of Allen Curnow and Frank Sargeson, he has published fourteen collections of poetry, eleven novels, seven books of literary criticism, two collections of short stories and edited a number of other collections. He has won many literary prizes, honours and fellowships, including the Creative New Zealand Michael King Writers’ Fellowship in 2005, during which he created this collection. Collected Poems 1951-2006 brings together his published poetry as well as 22 previously uncollected poems. A thick hard-backed volume, it comes in at just over 500 pages including a foreword and extensive notes and annotations written by Stead.

Lumičre’s Auckland Theatre Reviewer, Renee Liang, chats to ALEXANDER BISLEY about the fruition of her own play, ‘Lantern’, at BATS from April 21-May 2.

What was Lantern’s genesis?

I’d written a few short plays before then, and had some performed, but wanted to try my hand at long-form. I thought I’d start with a two-hander since I’ve really enjoyed the ones I’ve seen (Niu Sila, Bare) and they’re something of a tradition in New Zealand anyway – easy to put on, challenging for the actors, fun to watch. After I’d written a few scenes, I quickly realised that I needed some kind of unifying notion. It’s well known advice that you should ‘write what you know.’ So I hit on the idea of centering the action of my play around a family preparing for Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is to Chinese what Christmas is to Europeans. It’s a big fifteen-day celebration, and on Chinese New Year’s Eve everyone has to get together for a big family dinner. And traditionally you start the New Year off on a clean slate, so you have to have sorted the house, yourself and your family out, before the clock strikes midnight.

Ahead of four New Zealand dates this April, Sneaky Sound System’s co-founder Angus McDonald tells BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM about the ups and downs of success.

Aotea Centre
April 8-12 | Reviewed by Renee Liang (contains spoilers)

EXPECTATIONS were again high on the opening night of The Winter’s Tale, the next offering from the Bridge Project. Once again, they did not disappoint, serving up a nuanced and intelligent interpretation.

Downstage Theatre
March 26-April 11 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

THE RETURN SEASON of My Brilliant Divorce at Downstage is bolstered by previous reviews which praise the show almost ubiquitously, except for Lumičre’s own gentle criticism of course. Lynn Freeman described Ginette McDonald’s performance in the first run of My Brilliant Divorce as “brilliant, McDonald,” and in this run the praise still does hold up. It is McDonald’s portrayal of every-woman divorcee Angela Kennedy Lipsky that gives this show its broad appeal. The disaster-ridden divorcee is an English version of the Americana novel Eat Pray Love’s hapless Liz; and the show has the same best selling, low and loud, humour and anguish-laden grace.

BATS Theatre
April 1-9 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

IN Bud we are offered a lone male performer on stage, Jean Genet’s long banned film Un Chant d’Amour (A Love Song) projected onto the back wall of BATS and a voice over written by the director, Roanl Trifero Nelson about a man named Bud. The narration, projected film and on stage performance seem to play loosely around the idea of the taboo, erotic (homosexual) gaze. The connection is never really established beyond this. What emerges is a piece that has excellent constituent parts – but they are just not well combined.

BATS Theatre
March 31-April 9 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

Dolores deals with dual themes of domestic violence and the tension in a sibling relationship in adulthood. Sandra is enjoying her day off, rocking out to Pat Benatar and relishing small treats like a magazine and cupcakes. The arrival of her sister Dolores, with a black eye from the latest in a long line of abusive husbands, is a totally unwelcome intrusion on her ordered life – as well as what she sacrifices to achieve it.

CATHERINE BISLEY’s third WOMAD as Lumičre photographer. We present a selection of groups and some favourite moments that evoke the weekend in gallery format.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM trawls the local music calendar to bring us the month’s best gigs. This April: The Phoenix Foundation, Rollercoaster 09, SummerSet 09, Sneaky Sound System.

Aotea Centre
April 4-5 | Reviewed by Renee Liang

THE BRIDGE PROJECT is such a good idea that it’s a wonder that is isn’t done more often. Collect eighteen of the best stage actors from the UK and the US, and arrange to tour two classic plays in repertory across centres in Asia, the Pacific, the US and the UK. That Auckland was chosen to be one of these centres is perhaps a credit to the persistence and network building of the programming people at The EDGE. It was certainly a boon to the capacity audience that turned out for the opening night.

BATS Theatre
March 17-28 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

I AM usually incredibly generous and forgiving towards the production of plays by first time playwrights. The Sri Lankan conflict has recently been in the media again, so a play that examines its impact on a group of characters from New Zealand and Sri Lanka should be highly relevant. However, Serendipity was so flawed that I don’t think even the most generous of viewers could have forgiven its faults. It easily qualifies as one of the worst productions I have ever seen – and that includes a Czech version of Hamlet in which the Ghost of Hamlet’s father was a computer virus and Hamlet was on rollerblades.

Auckland Festival, Musgrove Studio
March 12-28 | Reviewed by Renee Liang (contains spoilers)

A MAN sits slumped in a chair, his face hidden from the audience. Around him two ramshackle cottages are on the brink of collapse. A jumble of old chairs is glimpsed backstage and transparent blue netting seems to shroud the whole scene.

Issue 10
NZ$10 | Reviewed by Thomasin Sleigh

THE RECENT White Fungus is a big box of words. Good words. All arranged well and clearly and in tidy lines for ease of reading. It is great to see this publication reach issue number ten given the difficulties involved in sustaining niche publications in New Zealand. Part of its charm I guess is that White Fungus isn’t that ‘niche’ and actually caters to many tastes – Issue 10 includes poetry, prose, political critique, page works, historical snippets, art criticism and a tasty little run down on the 300BC cynic Diogenes to finish. Like a Greek after dinner mint.