Review: STUPID BITCH wants a puppy

This is a ‘tune up’ of 2018’s STUPID BITCH which played in a dance stu­dio above Cuba Street in the Fringe Fes­ti­val. As a work in devel­op­ment it gar­nered actor/writer Claire Wal­dron nom­i­na­tions for Out­stand­ing Per­former in the Welling­ton and Dunedin Fringe Fes­ti­vals. This time around it’s at BATS The­atre in The Hey­day Dome. Wal­dron […]

Review: The Human Voice (La voix humaine)

TW: Sui­cide Jean Cocteau wrote La Voix Humaine in 1928 as a one-act play.  Fran­cis Poulenc set it to music 30 years lat­er, despite hav­ing already known Cocteau well for years, and gave the rea­son for the delay as hav­ing need­ed more life expe­ri­ence to do it jus­tice.  Dur­ing those years he strug­gled with depres­sion […]

Festival time!

Late Jan­u­ary 2020 and the sum­mery weath­er is here. I final­ly feel like I’m wak­ing up in 2020  — which is a bit awk­ward giv­en I’ve been back at work for a few weeks…but enough about work!  Brace your­selves for a busy the­atri­cal start to the year. We’ve got three Fes­ti­vals com­ing our way in […]

Preview: Show Me Shorts 2019 Programme Announced!

With its largest ever pro­gramme, the Show Me Shorts Film Fes­ti­val opens at cin­e­mas across Aotearoa from the 5th of Octo­ber. With six­ty short films and three music videos — all cho­sen from a record 2040 entries — this fes­ti­val is sure to be one to remem­ber. Eight Kiwi films will be mak­ing their word […]

Review: Digging to Cambodia

Sari­ta So revis­its her Toi Whakaari solo show, turn­ing it onto a longer explo­ration of mak­ing mem­o­ry and his­to­ry telling. “Through words, move­ment and songs from Cam­bo­di­a’s 1960’s rock era — Dig­ging to Cam­bo­dia is a let­ter to her past, present and future self, it asks us all “What is worth remem­ber­ing?”” So wears a […]

Review: Windigo

Wow, did I mis­un­der­stand the mar­ket­ing for this show. “Fierce and vis­cer­al, Windi­go res­onates like a scream, the vibrant echo of a long his­to­ry of hu-man ran­sack­ing and destruc­tion, a vio­la­tion of a land and its cul­ture.” I went in brac­ing myself for the emo­tion­al equiv­a­lent of a hur­ri­cane. This is not that. For me, […]

Review: The Weekend

Lara has only the week­end to track down her part­ner as she tra­vers­es the world of pub­lic hous­ing, drug deal­ing, and addic­tion. The Week­end is based on a sit­u­a­tion that first time play­wright that Hen­ri­et­ta Baird (from Kuku Yalanji/Yidinji coun­try in Queensland’s Far North) expe­ri­enced. From this she’s writ­ten an extreme­ly fun­ny, emo­tion­al­ly hor­ri­fy­ing one-woman […]

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 […]

Fringe show reviews: Glittery Clittery, Dry & Damaged and Missing Lids

Today’s guest reviews of three fringe shows come cour­tesy of Tony Barnes. Thanks Tony! The Fringe Wives Club — Glit­tery Clit­tery A year ago, while tour­ing sev­er­al of her shows at the 2018 NZ Fringe Fes­ti­val, Tes­sa Waters men­tioned that she had anoth­er show in devel­op­ment that she would bring to the 2019 Fringe. Fringe […]

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 […]