World War I needs more men to fight and Maori from Mataira Mountain are being asked to go. Grandma Mataira is vehemently against their going. Her son Waru believes fighting alongside Pakeha will bring Maori equal rights in New Zealand. With his son Tai and Tai’s best Pakeha friend Alec Campbell, he volunteers. Their experience […]
If you suspect that I’m not an actual, fully qualified reviewer, you’d be correct. However, in this particular instance, I feel I have some expertise having watched the movie Evita, starring my pal Madonna. Armed with this extensive knowledge, and having wikipediaed Eva Peron (did you know Juan Peron popped her corpse in his dining room 20 years after […]
A Man and a Woman meet. There’s definitely something between them that both would like to explore further… but his girlfriend shows up. They run into each other again. But she’s trying to make it work with someone and he’s got a different girlfriend. Through comedy and tragedy they keep meeting each other. Will they […]
Three high school students from Australia and New Zealand have won a competition to visit Gallipoli for the ANZAC day commemorations. They are escorted over by two company representatives. Everything is going according to the schedule when one of the students goes off script. The fallout affects them all. This is the 2015 STAB production […]
Two wordy plays are currently showing in Wellington. Both are very good. The Angry Brigade by James Graham, directed by Samuel Phillips Four police officers are in a basement office in London trying to track down some terrorists. Threats have been made. Bombs have gone off. It’s not the IRA. In fact, they’re not like […]
The clinking of cutlery and mumbled conversation greet us as we walk into the theatre. Blue glowing lines show the edges of the fishtank. It’s a sparse place but I guess the fish aren’t there to live. Blue Cod (Hweiling Ow) is preparing to be chosen. She is joined unexpectedly by Crayfish (Bemjamin Teh) who […]
When I invited my friend Keith to Tosca and he told me he’d seen it before, I asked for no spoilers. He sent me a text saying “Psh. It’s an opera. There is singing. People die. From a feminist view it is problematic. That’s about all there is to it”. His text was true, but also […]
A Bluecod has been in the tank of a Chinese restaurant for an indeterminate amount of time. She’s not sure how she got there or what life was like before the tank. Then a Crayfish arrives. He’s energetic and she starts to think about life again. Meanwhile there’s always the possibility that one of them […]
Improv shows are always different depending on the energy of the performers, the prompts they are given, and the energy of the audience. Most of the ones I’ve seen in Wellington have been entertaining. Some are sublime and contain moments of pure theatrical genius. The kind where the whole audience holds its breathe then exhales […]
Bart (Paul Waggot) is a writer who is married to Jane, (Acushla-Tara Sutton). Jane is an actress who is nervous about her job security and therefore is keen to cultivate a working relationship with Wallace (Gavin Rutherford) a gossip columnist. Wallace throws a party where Jane and Bart meet Terry (Andrew Paterson) who can help […]