Review: Pōhutu

Pōhutu is a mul­ti­di­men­sion­al con­tem­por­ary dance piece that thrives in lim­in­al space. Draw­ing par­al­lels between Cho­reo­graph­er Bianca Hyslop’s grandmother’s dia­gnos­is of Alzheimers and the geo­therm­al land­scape she grew up in, it’s an unset­tling and utterly beau­ti­ful work. The begin­ning and end sequences draw gasps from the audi­ence. The middle sequences con­tain some of the most […]

Review: Over My Dead Body: Little Black Bitch

This is the world premiere of the play by Jason Te Mete. The script shared the Adam New Zea­l­and Play Award for Best Play by a Māori Play­wright in 2018. It is a the­at­ric­al rep­res­ent­a­tion of one way depres­sion can mani­fest. It starts with a mihi from Te Mete (also dir­ect­or and music­al dir­ect­or) wel­com­ing […]

Review: System

A sparse set – two walls, some tape on the floor –  is giv­en char­ac­ter by light­ing (Nata­sha James) and pro­jec­tion effects (Jason Wright). Flick­er­ings along the edges of fur­niture, spin­ning tri­angles, water on the base of the wall, clearly defined shad­ows. A light rect­angle becomes some­thing to invest­ig­ate. The score (Jason Wright) is an […]

Review: Water

Based on the true story of Carl Hans Lody, a WW1 Ger­man Spy. He was caught then executed inthe Tower of Lon­don four months into World War I. This new play, from award-win­n­ing writer, Mark Langham, centres Lody’s story and his reas­ons for becom­ing a spy. Steph­en Lloyd-Coombs is a per­son­able and charm­ing Lody. Around […]

Review: Yesterday, in space

The good space­ship Yes­ter­day is the first rock­et ship to launch from Aotearoa New Zea­l­and and we get to come along for the ride! Her new crew are determ­ined to show us a good time. What a pity they’re stuck in the middle of pro­fes­sion­al rival­ries, con­fus­ing per­son­al rela­tion­ships, and an aster­oid belt… All those […]

Review: Coffee Bean-Queen Machine

Paja Neuho­fer­ova wears a blue flor­al pat­tern full skirt, a short navy jack­et with the blue flor­al fab­ric on the front, a head­band with small flowers. As we arrive she is sit­ting on the counter. The accor­di­on she plays is a deep glossy red. It sounds jaunty. Eight­een of us are tightly packed in to […]

Review: Blonde Mountain Wolf Man

Craig Geenty comes from a large and exten­ded fam­ily. They’re gregari­ous. They like a bit of a drink. They’ve been whis­per­ing about a fam­ily secret for years. Great-grand­­fath­er Joseph is still offi­cially miss­ing after dis­ap­pear­ing on his way back home after mak­ing a deliv­ery in town in 1921. Did he crash? Did he run away? […]

Review: Side by Side by Sondheim

A revue of ‘most adven­tur­ous com­poser’ Steph­en Sondheim’s works. Ori­gin­ally per­formed in 1976 the music­als rep­res­en­ted in this revue are from the early part of his career. (Some of the music­als men­tioned in the show’s pro­mo­tion­al mater­i­al do not fea­ture.)  He explores the themes of love, rela­tion­ships, and mar­riage. Per­formed by Julie O’Brien, Mat­thew Pike, […]

Review: Why are we still here?

Four women on the run break into an aban­doned theatre to shel­ter from a ter­rible storm. The group’s lead­er, Benny, is the first to notice they’re not alone – there are two oth­ers in the build­ing. It takes the group of women a little while to dis­cov­er that the ‘oth­ers’ are ghosts but by then […]

Preview: All Good

Parekura and Ra re-unite on a night out in the town. Their past rekindles an old kind, odd romance for each oth­er again. They enjoy the night and end up back at Parekura’s whare where her fath­er, Chief, awaits the return of his only daugh­ter not expect­ing to see her infam­ous friend as well. Chief con­cedes to Parekura’s demands […]