Review: Owls Do Cry

Review: Owls Do Cry

Owls Do Cry is not your typ­i­cal the­atri­cal retelling of a book. Instead, it is a com­plete rein­ter­pre­ta­tion of the work through move­ment, design and song.   The show starts very light-heart­ed with a cho­rus of singing, move­ment and audi­ence inter­ac­tion. As the show con­tin­ues, how­ev­er, it draws you into the real pain and fragili­ty of […]

Review: Pudgy Mediocre White Men Solve Your Problems

Review: Pudgy Mediocre White Men Solve Your Problems

A white­board greets us at the top of the stairs of BATS’ Dome The­atre. 10am — Danc­ing with Craig (R18). It reads. 1.45pm — Knit­ting with Craig (R18), then 8pm — Dave & Bryan Impov Thing. And that is what we’re here to see (though I am par­tic­u­lar­ly tak­en by the con­cept of 12.45pm — Autop­sy for Begin­ners.) We’re at […]

Review: Macbeth

Review: Macbeth

I went into Mac­beth at the St James com­plete­ly cold — I know Verdi’s lat­er operas, includ­ing his lat­er Shake­speare operas; Otel­lo and Fal­staff.  But I’ve some­how missed Mac­beth, and decid­ed to keep it that way, I guess because it’s so excit­ing to go into some­thing com­plete­ly fresh and new, even if it was writ­ten […]

Review: Title & Deed

Review: Title & Deed

Reviewed by Lox Dixon. Pre­sent­ed as a part of TAHI Fes­ti­val, 2022. I’m going to make an earnest effort to men­tion the writ­ing as lit­tle as pos­si­ble in this review because that’s not real­ly the point and every­one prob­a­bly knows by now that Will Eno is a phe­nom­e­nal writer. That said, the beau­ty of this […]

Review: Effy

Review: Effy

Reviewed by Lox Dixon. Pre­sent­ed as a part of the TAHI Fes­ti­val, 2022.  Effy is a piece of phys­i­cal the­atre per­formed by a masked actor, and fea­tur­ing no ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The show takes place in what osten­si­bly looks like a pub­lic park. A rub­bish bin sits on one side of the stage, an old wood­en […]

Review: HATCH

Review: HATCH

Reviewed by Jules Daniel. Pre­sent­ed by TAHI: New Zealand Fes­ti­val of Solo Per­for­mance, HATCH is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for five emerg­ing stu­dent artists from Te Aua­ha, Toi Whakaari: NZ Dra­ma School, and Te Heren­ga Waka — Vic­to­ria Uni­ver­si­ty of Welling­ton to show­case and devel­op their work fur­ther. The mahi of a pro­gram with a kau­pa­pa to […]

Review: Krishnan’s Dairy

Review: Krishnan’s Dairy

Review by Talia Carlisle. A wise man once told me that real loves grows, and so does my love of Indi­an Ink’s now leg­endary tale of Krishnan’s Dairy that wound up its final sea­son in Welling­ton this week. The pro­duc­tion is a well pol­ished gem in the crown of cre­ative team Jacob Rajan and Justin […]

Review: Back to Square One?

Review: Back to Square One?

Reviewed by Shona Jau­nas Back to Square One invites you into con­ver­sa­tion between 95 year old Inga’s liv­ing room in Den­mark and her grand­son, Anders Fal­stie-Jensen in New Zealand. It starts with the audi­ence all writ­ing their names on the stage front in chalk which imme­di­ate­ly brings us into the space; we are all involved […]

Review: Skin Tight

Review: Skin Tight

Skin Tight is my favourite ever play and I’ve been want­i­ng to see it per­formed since I first read it. Cir­ca The­atre did not dis­ap­point with their iter­a­tion of this show; a glo­ri­ous­ly evoca­tive piece with incred­i­ble stag­ing, per­for­mances and move­ment. The play is not just a love sto­ry to its char­ac­ters — and the highs […]

Review: Celestial Nobodies

Review: Celestial Nobodies

Before I even start this review, let me just stress how well the cast of Celes­tial Nobod­ies per­formed under pres­sure last night, the audi­ence space was quite chal­leng­ing for mul­ti­ple rea­sons and they held the show well with com­po­sure and poise — no mean feat con­sid­er­ing it was open­ing night as well! Celes­tial Nobod­ies sold out dur­ing the […]