Real quick impres­sions of 3 NZ Fringe shows They’re all worth your money.

A note on koha: Most of the shows I’ve seen are recom­mend­ing between $10-$20 for koha. BRING CHANGE. It’s just rude to reach into the koha box because you’ve only got a $20. If you’ve only got a $20 give the per­formers a $20.

Against the pier­cing sun, presen­ted by Mak­ing Friends Col­lect­ive, on at Gryphon Theatre to 26 Feb­ru­ary 2016

Not exactly as described in the pro­gramme this is a play rather than solely a sound­scape by Flinn Gend­all. (An excel­lent sound­scape!) It fol­lows Camer­on as they try to make sense of a break­up, new friends, their own apathy and self­care. Nicely dir­ec­ted by Amy Griffin-Browne and Johnny Craw­ford, the 6 cast mem­bers have good tim­ing as they walk on and off stage inter­act­ing or provid­ing back­ground col­our. Good stuff and should come back for a return sea­son.

N.B. I’m lov­ing the tend­ency of our new writers to give their char­ac­ters gender neut­ral names. This is backed up by the use of they as a pro­noun in this play. (I men­tion this because it’s been writ­ten about in a less than com­pli­ment­ary man­ner else­where.) It’s great.

Potato Stamp Mega­lo­ma­ni­ac by Pres­sure Point on at 17 Tory street to 27 Feb­ru­ary 2016

This koha play is a reponse to a ‘hypo­man­ic epis­ode’ the writer had in the final year of his B.A. He invites us to clear our heads of any pre­con­cep­tions and just go with it. For me it starts slowly then stealth­ily becomes more and more com­pel­ling until I’m at the final scenes, unwill­ing to look away. Strange and won­der­ful.

Ras­ter on at 17 Tory street to 27 Feb­ru­ary

Short little koha show that presents three rep­res­ent­at­ives of the types of people online – Anon, Avatar, Pro­file. It doesn’t make any judge­ments leav­ing us to make our own com­ments. (Take a fully charged device so you can con­nect to their Wifi net­work and par­ti­cip­ate in the show.) Uses X‑box Kin­ect to invest­ig­ate the inter­sec­tion between devised theatre and tech.  I’m hop­ing they extend this test into a full length show.