Review: Lucrece

An adapt­a­tion of Shakespeare’s nar­rat­ive poem “The rape of Lucrece” by Binge Cul­ture Col­lect­ive. It’s a visual+audio install­a­tion at the Toi Poneke Gal­lery plus a live per­form­ance on Thursday and Fri­day even­ings.  Fiona McNamara’s dir­ect­or’s note states “This pro­duc­tion of Shakespeare’s poem claims the text, writ­ten by a man in a pat­ri­arch­al soci­ety, as a […]

Binge Culture takes on Lucrece

“Audi­ence mem­bers will be seated close enough to touch the per­formers and view­ers will be encour­aged to think about the ways they look at women’s bod­ies – both on film and in the flesh.” No, that’s not the press release from Wel­ling­ton Fash­ion Week. Instead, it’s Lucrece: An Adapt­a­tion of Shakespeare’s the Rape of Lucrece, […]

Glee meets V for Vendetta

Music­als aren’t every­one’s cup of tea. But if said music­al is set in Wel­ling­ton and involves the assas­sin­a­tions of Glee type char­ac­ters it’s hard not to want to know more. Joshua Hop­ton Stew­art has writ­ten a hil­ari­ous piece of music­al theatre based on his team’s entry in the 2010 V48Hour Short Film Com­pet­i­tion, Soci­ety Slump […]

Review: Michael James Manaia

This solo show starts with a wel­come and karakia. After a ser­i­ous start it flips into a mad­cap story.  As the action pro­gresses we hear a man telling us the story of his life –  what his par­ents were like, why he went to Viet­nam, what happened there, and what happened when he came back […]

NZ Fringe Festival 2012 into week two

The New Zea­l­and Fringe Fest­iv­al presents emer­ging artists in a fest­iv­al of weird and won­der­ful per­form­ances around Wel­ling­ton. The shows are are reas­on­ably priced (or free) and are held in ven­ues all over the city. The pro­gramme is full of shows, con­veni­ently divided in the pro­gramme into genres –  Com­edy, Dance, Music, Theatre, or Visu­al […]

Should they stay or should they go?

We receive a lot of press releases here at the Wel­ling­tonista, but few are as charm­ing as this one: Brad and Nancy are act­ors who are also a couple, and they’re try­ing to decide if they should live in Eng­land or New Zea­l­and. Nat­ur­ally, they’ve decided to do a show in the Wel­ling­ton Fringe Fest­iv­al […]

Review: The Motor Camp

Two fam­il­ies take their cara­vans to The Wind­mill Motor Camp for the sum­mer hol­i­days. Uni­ver­sity lec­tur­ers, Frank (Tim Spite) and Jude (Dani­elle Mason) Red­mond, along with their daugh­ter Holly (Florence Mul­her­on) set up next to build­ing con­tract­or Mike His­lop (Phil Vaughan), his wife (?) Dawn Tairoa (Olivia Viol­et Robin­son) and her son Jared (Ant­ony Young). […]

Festival 2012

I’m old enough to remem­ber when the Arts Fest­iv­al was known archly as The New Zea­l­and Inter­na­tion­al Fest­iv­al of the Arts. In recent years the name has been tidied up but the goal has remained the same – bring really cool, really great, inter­na­tion­al artists to Wel­ling­ton and show­case their work along­side the best of […]

Review: Sex drive

 Sex drive is a new dra­mat­ic com­edy from writers Lor­ae Parry and Pinky Agnew. It focuses on three women – Sylvie (Ger­aldine Brophy), Chrissy (Emman Kin­ane), and Dawn (Lyn­­dee-Jane Ruther­ford) – and their quest to become inde­pend­ent women. The cata­lyst for their change from chick­en fact­ory work­ers to small busi­ness own­ers is a Lotto win…of […]

Review: He reo aroha

Do Tawata have a hot-line to beau­ti­ful? This is the second pro­duc­tion I’ve seen from them in as many weeks that has opened my heart and lif­ted my mood. He reo aroha has been around for a few years now, tour­ing New Zea­l­and and the world. It keeps to a min­im­al aes­thet­ic – a couple […]