Review: Hart

There is a ring of white in the mid­dle of the stage. A man stands inside it, slight­ly to the side. In the dark we lis­ten to politi­cians and radio hosts dis­cuss Indige­nous Aus­tralians. Tak­en from their fam­i­lies ‘for their own good’, ‘to save them from them­selves’. A lone voice offers an apol­o­gy. The sober­ing […]

NZ Fringe Festival reviews x 3

Reviews for three neat shows in the Fringe Fes­ti­val. See­ing the city: a tast­ing menu by Ania and Kim Upstill, at 17 Tory street, final show­ing 19 Feb­ru­ary 2016 We are greet­ed at the door by Ania Upstill and invit­ed to wash our hands. She directs us on to Pip­pi­a­j­na Tui who shows us to […]

Review: Vladimir the Crow: Whispering Ghoul

A bare stage greets us at the Gryphon The­atre.  It seems big­ger than usu­al with a sound­scape that hints at vast des­o­late spaces where the only thing alive is the whistling wind. Then noise! Lights! And a tat­tered crea­ture that stut­ters out from the wings as if glimpsed by light­ning flash­es. Vladimir the Crow is […]

Reviews of Hillary Clinton / Young Lover and Discharge goes back to school

Review: Hillary Clin­ton / Young Lover Richard Meros is back. Old­er, more trav­elled, more ambi­tious in his attempt to bring about a gold­en age of trans-pacif­ic part­ner­ships.  He’s con­vinced Hillary Clin­ton needs a young lover to boost her poll rat­ings so that she can get into the White House. (And be in charge.) (Of the […]

Preview: Hillary Clinton / Young Lover

Dash­ing Mil­len­ni­al Richard Meros is back in town with a per­sua­sive argu­ment that out­lines the con­di­tions and pos­si­bil­i­ties of Hillary Clin­ton tak­ing him as her Young Lover pri­or to the 2016 Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion. (You may recall him attempt­ing the same thing with Helen Clark before elec­tion night 2008.)  I asked him some ques­tions before his […]

Review: At the end of my hands

Six per­form­ers from inte­grat­ed com­pa­ny Equal Voic­es Arts, dressed sim­ply in grey, black, and white, enact sto­ries explor­ing Deaf cul­ture for Deaf and hear­ing audi­ences. Sto­ries such as flir­ta­tions at the swim­ming pool and get­ting bust­ed for speed­ing (hilar­i­ous!) are con­trast­ed with more touch­ing sto­ries. The per­form­ers Kylie Willis, Alex Lodge, Mihai­lo Lad­je­vac, Shaun Fahey, […]

Review: Spring Awakening

Sev­en chil­dren are pushed into a world where they fum­ble their way towards adult­hood. Moritz and Thea are wor­ried about their aca­d­e­m­ic records. Wend­la wants to know where babies come from. Martha’s not sure if her home­life is nor­mal. Mel­chior has a lot of ques­tions. Hän­schen is try­ing to keep his head down. Ilse just […]

It’s almost Arts Festival season!

Welling­to­ni­ans rejoice for it is almost ARTS FESTIVAL SEASON! From the begin­ning of Feb­ru­ary through March we’ll be able to enjoy work in devel­op­ment, new and exper­i­men­tal acts, and some of the best stuff from around the world. First one to start is the Fringe Fes­ti­val.  As they say on the web­site “Our fes­ti­val is open access […]

Reviews of two Christmas themed shows in Wellington

This head­ing is not total­ly accu­rate as one of the shows con­sists of four dif­fer­ent shows. You only need to buy one tick­et to see the four shows, so for two tick­ets you can see five shows. Con­fused? Wel­come to the reviews for Stages of Cheer  and A Christ­mas Karel Čapek at BATS The­atre! (Bring […]

Wellington Theatre Awards 2015

The Welling­ton The­atre Awards were held at Cir­ca The­atre on Sun­day night.  There were 191 shows in Welling­ton dur­ing 2015 – so much for this being a dying city. Host­ed by James Nokise (angling to rename the awards the ‘Nokise’s’), with musi­cal num­bers by Car­rie Green and Jack Buchanan it was an evening cel­e­brat­ing cre­ativ­i­ty, […]