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.