I’m not entire­ly sure how to describe this show.

Part cos­tumed-won­der, part avant-garde art piece, (A Smidge of) Pidge is a black com­e­dy about iden­ti­ty and anx­i­ety and pigeons.

I think.

Sher­ilee Kahui dances about BATS’ Pro­peller Stage for an hour dressed in an elab­o­rate pigeon cos­tume. She drinks wine, shares gin­ger­nuts, and recre­ates an icon­ic scene from Love Actu­al­ly with twice the heart­break, and sig­nif­i­cant­ly more pigeons.

It’s bizarre, con­fus­ing at points, but ulti­mate­ly glo­ri­ous.

Kahui is fan­tas­tic to watch, thor­ough­ly emo­tive and hilar­i­ous. Although the dia­logue in this piece is fair­ly min­i­mal, her facial expres­sions and speci­fici­ty in her move­ments is more than enough to make up for it.

While it may be impos­si­ble to divine the exact final point of the piece, there is no lack of joy and intro­spec­tion with­in it. Are we just scrag­gly pigeons try­ing to fly high with the wings of life and ulti­mate­ly fail­ing? Is the mean­ing of life just wait­ing at the bot­tom of an aban­doned box of chips?

I’m not total­ly sure, but in the end it does­n’t real­ly mat­ter. (A Smidge of) Pidge is very fun and well worth your time.

(A Smidge of) Pidge is being per­formed at BATS The­atre in Welling­ton from now until the 1st of Sep­tem­ber. Grab your tick­ets here!