Quick reviews of three shows in the Kia Mau festival
Opening last night at Circa Theatre SolOTHELLO, is a riotous one man retelling of Shakespeare’s Othello. (An unofficial British Council representative described it as the first time he’s seen Othello performed as standup comedy.) The mix of original text, Te Reo Māori, colloquial English, and stylised movement used by the four characters conveys the essence […]
The Open Space Plan
While the shape of this city is a curse for transportation planners, it is a blessing for anyone who even just occasionally wants to get outside, because the city’s edges are close by and full of opportunity. We don’t all take advantage of this though. There’s lots of good and bad reasons why people don’t, […]
Preview: Kia Mau Festival 2016
Eight companies perform eight productions over three weeks in the Kia Mau festival of theatre and dance. Matariki is the perfect time of the year to indulge your senses with world class theatre and dance hosted by BATS Theatre, Te Papa, and Circa Theatre. First up (tonight!) is Versions of Allah presented by contemporary indigenous theatre […]
Mushroom, mushroom
Last week Zealandia published a glorious little photo-essay An Enchantment of Fungi, alerting us to the fact that after a long dry summer, the recent rains have brought forth a rich crop of fungal fruiting bodies. I went for a walk there last Friday and found plenty of variety amid the damp forest, especially on the Valley View and […]
Brand new bars
The last few weeks have seen a rich crop of new bars popping up in Te Aro like hospitable mushrooms. Here’s a quick round-up of the most notable. Wellington’s had no shortage of new beer bars over the last few years, but it’s been a while since we’ve had a proper wine bar. Noble Rot fills […]
Review: The Elephant Thief
An exuberant onstage cartoon, Indian Ink Theatre Company’s The Elephant Thief begins in a jail cell and ends in… space, or the afterlife, or some other such vague spoiler. It’s an outsized feast of imaginative staging and potential pachyderm puns, anchored by a winning performance by company newcomer Vanessa Kumar. The show’s setting is a […]
Preview: House of Sand season – Pedal & Castles
I couldn’t see any of the House of Sand shows in the Fringe Festival this year so I’m really pleased that two of them – Pedal and Castles – are coming back to BATS Theatre this month. Castles won the SYNZ Award and was nominated in a number of other categories. I sent some questions to […]
It never rains…
…but it pours, especially in Porirua today, causing sudden flooding and serious disruption. I downloaded the hourly rainfall data from Greater Wellington’s site (a rather painful manual process, but a big improvement from not long ago, when you could only get the charts as static images) and put together a quick graph. Here are cumulative […]
Preview: The great maiden’s blush
From the makers of Hook, Line & Sinker and Taking the Waewae Express comes a new female-centred story rich in drama and emotion. Two first time mothers, Bunny (Miriama McDowell) and Aila (Renee Lyons) end up sharing a room in a post-natal ward after the birth of their babies. A precarious friendship develops between them as they face the challenges […]
Towards Tangi-te-Keo
Up the back of Newtown — past the hospital, past New Zealand’s first branch library, past the community display-window where the Conscientious Objectors’ memorials absent from Pukeahu Park quietly underscore ANZAC celebrations — runs a narrow path marking the spine of Tangi-te-Keo (later Mt Victoria). Māori knew the spine of Tangi-te-Keo as Te Ranga-a-Hiwi, the Ridge of […]