MARIANA ISARA is a poet who subsists in Otautahi/Christchurch. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Trout, Sport, and Blackmail Press. Here she quotes Rod McKuen, pop lyrics, and a local: John, she calls him, ‘though that is not his name’.

DESH BALASUBRAMANIAM is a young poet. He was born in Sri Lanka and grew up in both the war torn Northern and Eastern provinces. He fled to New Zealand at the age of thirteen with his family on humanitarian asylum. His work has appeared in Mascara Literary Review, Blackmail Press, Lines Magazine, The Big Issue, Blue Giraffe, Electronic Poetry Network, Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) Online, Auckland Poetry and further work will appear in the next editions of Overland and Indigo Dream Anthology – And Again Last Night. He is currently working on his first poetry collection.

Vic Chesnutt (with Victoria Williams) tour New Zealand this July. He talks to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM about recording his debut album Little, and being alive nearly twenty years later to tell the tale.

The Basement, as part of STAMP at THE EDGE™
June 15-20 | Reviewed by Renee Liang

OFFERING a fresh if slightly macabre take on the Great Kiwi Road Trip, Carol & Nev is a 60 minute ride through both public and private landscapes. Nev is a disillusioned office worker who is driving down country to his daughter Sam’s wedding. Everything is going to schedule until… his wife Carol, who died 25 years ago, pops up in the passenger seat.

NZSO, Made in NZ 2009; Wellington Town Hall
June 12-13 | Reviewed by Samuel Holloway

THE ARRIVAL of Finnish clarinetist Kari Kriikku in New Zealand gave dual reasons for celebration. Not only did we have one of the world’s foremost clarinetists performing here, but he had convinced the NZSO to programme two substantial contemporary pieces by fellow Finns Magnus Lindberg and Jukka Tiensuu. These two works were without doubt the highlights of the concert series, but were sandwiched between standard concert repertoire that came off looking a little banal by comparison, in spite of consistently excellent playing by the NZSO.

Circa Theatre
May 29-June 27 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

All the World’s a Stage is billed as a “round-the-bard trip in 90 minutes with Ray Henwood”. According to the programme, Henwood conceived of the one man show as “a way to introduce the playwright to those who felt he was not for them, and also to offer to those who knew the work a chance to revisit some of the highlights.” He was also inspired by John Gielgud’s Ages of Man. Henwood presents an engaging ‘greatest hits’ of Shakespearean speeches. It is a highly accessible work that will satisfy most, although those with a greater depth of knowledge of the Bard’s work will perhaps hunger for some of the richer, darker fare that they know lurks within the folio pages.

BATS Theatre
May 27-June 6 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

Charm Is Not Enough marks the fourth devised offering from Babyshads and is consistent with their quirky, multi-faceted style. They explore their overtly political topics though monologue, dance and song. This time around multimedia technology also plays a big part in the show, and the costumes and set have been upgraded from their previous efforts. The result is an entertaining and varied show and represents a significant progression for the devising technique of the company, although I do still think the ‘Shads have way to go before they fully synthesise their politics with their art.

NZSO, Made in NZ 2009; Wellington Town Hall
May 29 | Reviewed by Lynley Edmeades

PART WAY through the performance, Ross Harris, contemporary New Zealand composer, was invited on stage by conductor Hamish McKeich, to take on a question and answer session. Although he stood with arms crossed, a warmth emanated off him as his facial expression provided a bridge between Douglas Lilburn and what had just been performed: Landfall in Unknown Seas, a collaborative project between Lilburn and literary comrade Allen Curnow, written to commemorate the tercentenary of New Zealand’s discovery by Abel Tasman.

The Basement
June 8-13 | Reviewed by Rosabel Tan

CHINESE New Year is about new beginnings. It’s about forgetting old grudges, and beginning the year with hope for the future. It’s this hope that frames the action in Renee Liang’s Lantern. Intertwining the stories of two generations, it opens with Henry (Andy Wong) pleading with his wife Rose (Li-Ming Hu) to come back home to him. She tells him she can’t, and the rest of play is devoted to explaining why. Their children Jen and Ken have problems of their own, ranging from their experiences of prejudice on a day-to-day basis to the more ubiquitous problems of finding love and deciding what to do with their lives.

SAPNA SAMANT recently caught up with Mohammed Hanif, author of ‘A Case of Exploding Mangoes’, following the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival in May.

IT WAS TOWARDS the end of the interview that I thanked Mohammed Hanif for not writing a book that had the smell of spices. “What do you mean?”, he said. You know the books that Indian writers of English do so well. Ancient mansions in villages, landlords and upper caste types, grandmother crushing spices with her mortar and pestle, dabbing her tears with the corner of her crushed silk saree pallu, the smell of spices pervading the olfactory senses of the reader...that stuff. “Oh, I would love to read this book,” he declared. He was taking the piss. Exactly like in A Case of Exploding Mangoes. I could not stop laughing from the moment I started it. The era of Zia-Ul-Haq in Pakistan and how he forever changed the face of this subcontinental nation by imposing Sharia and other Islamic laws. God, sorry, Allah spoke to Zia much before he changed his avatar for George W. But if every word in the book formed an image, then it was dark and depressing because those years changed the world. Those years of covert U.S. operations in Pakistan, backing mujahideen, the Pakistani army and a man called Osama Bin Laden. Of course I had to tell him how much I enjoyed it. Imagine comparing Nancy Reagan’s face to an old cat’s arse! Or the imagery of Mrs Zia’s massive buttocks quivering as she turned in her sleep! “You remember all the naughty bits don’t you?”, Hanif said. Well yes, if the metaphors are so original and wild.

Phil Ormsby and Alex Ellis, founders of Flaxworks theatre company, and director Anna Marbrook are working together for the first time to bring Carol & Nev to the stage, premiering at The Basement theatre in Auckland, from June 15. RENEE LIANG talks to Alex and Phil about creative coupling.

By Darren Glass
Self-published, NZ$40 | Reviewed by Andy Palmer

EXPECTATIONS. Often they can be the undoing of you; they can throw you completely.

I picked up A Field Guide to Camera Species and the first thought I had was that it was smaller than I expected. It’s not often art books come as a 100 page, A5. Flicking through, I realise that there aren’t the photos I had expected. Then it hits me. The book that I’m holding and confounding my expectations is actually a field guide. In the truest sense.

Silo Theatre, at the Herald Theatre
May 29-June 27 | Reviewed by Renee Liang (contains spoilers)

“WHEN YOU scratch the surface, is there just another surface beneath?” asks the tagline for The Scene. At first glance, the latest in a line of high-octane North American dramas brought to the Auckland stage by Silo is indeed glittery but shallow. It’s full of witty but inconsequential word play, attention-grabbing behaviour and satiric observations, all too familiar from imported TV. But like all good sitcoms, we are hooked despite ourselves. And right at the end, there’s the payoff.

Circa Theatre
May 9-June 6 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

FROM THE MOMENT you walk into Circa’s main auditorium for the Willem Wassenar directed English language version of Lorca’s play Blood Wedding you know you are in for something different. First to strike you is how the stage is stripped back – even the black curtains on the back walls are tied back, as if the designer (Andrew Foster) is laying the theatre bare. The cast sit on assorted chairs or mill about in a loose semi circle – the sense that they are waiting for the performance to begin just as much as we are is heightened by the circle dramatically drawn in sand before the play itself commences. Outside the ring the actors wait and watch casually, but once they step into the ring you are assaulted with passionate and raw performance. Part theatre, part flamenco, part violent passion of the bull ring, Wassenar, the designers and the actors in this production offer an incredibly dramatic, non-naturalistic, and incredibly Spanish show, despite the English translation.

ALEXANDER BISLEY speaks to Michelle Johansson and members of her Black Friars troupe ahead of bringing their acclaimed Othello Polynesia Shakespeare adaptation to Wellington this June.

Actor, writer, director and teacher Glen Pickering is staging a “Mocumentative play” called Kairoa Glory: A Top Town Story. RENEE LIANG talks to Glen about making plays from real-life childhood memories.