Review: Fifty Shades of Ray

Review: Fifty Shades of Ray

Reviewed by Talia Carlisle. On a rain-splat­tered Welling­ton evening, I find myself refuge in BATS Theatre’s Stu­dio space where paper “wor­ries” are hung on string across the small stage. An eager smat­ter­ing of audi­ence mem­bers buzz in excite­ment, wait­ing for Ray Ship­ley to enter, fresh from a pop­u­lar Christchurch sea­son with a well-craft­ed set ready […]

Review: Romeo & Juliet

Review: Romeo & Juliet

Image cred­it: Stephen A’Court Reviewed by Talia Carlisle What a mag­i­cal place Welling­ton is, when you can start your evening with gin and fresh seafood at Cinderella’s for the Welling­ton on a Plate Launch — and pop down to the St James The­atre, home of the Roy­al New Zealand Bal­let for their open­ing night of […]

A photo of a man and woman, standing, smiling and gesturing wildly, in front of a woods backdrop.

Review: Into the Woods

Image cred­it: Maeve O’Con­nell. Reviewed by Talia Carlisle Not dis­sim­i­lar to the high fash­ion of the Met Gala, I adorned my best tiara and laven­der frock, ready to descend Te Auaha’s stairs to Witch Music Theatre’s Into The Woods. There isn’t a more mag­i­cal stair­case to a fairy­tale full of laugh­ter. If the eye-catch­ing adver­tis­ing […]

Review: The Best is Yet to Come

Review: The Best is Yet to Come

Fea­tured Image Graph­ic design­er: Jared Palle­sen  Fea­tured Image Pho­tog­ra­ph­er: Leoluchi­no Linu­mus    The per­for­mance style for The Best is Yet to Come has a lit­tle bit of every­thing auto­bi­og­ra­phy, ted talk, mag­ic show and queer inspi­ra­tional guid­ance. Adorned in won­der­ful­ly sparkling nails and gems across his fore­head, Jere­my Rol­ston opened the show with some guid­ance […]

Review: Concept for a Film

Review: Concept for a Film

A Beau­ti­ful Har­mo­ny of The­atre, Music and So Mush Spore.   I loved the nov­el for­mat of sto­ry­telling that ‘Con­cept for a Film’ deliv­ered. The scene opens with Max Bar­ton, sit­ting at a desk that faces the audi­ence, read­ing out the script for a film. These read­ings are inter­mit­tent­ly dis­persed with many dis­rup­tions includ­ing phone calls […]

Review: The Sensemaker

Review: The Sensemaker

Pro­duced by ‘Woman’s Move’ from Switzer­land and co-direc­t­ed by chore­o­g­ra­phers Elsa Cou­vreur and Iona D’Annunzio. The Sense­mak­er starts as a clever and under­stat­ed com­e­dy that uses dance, move­ment and sound as its main devices. The­atre like this is at its best when min­i­mal and per­fect­ly timed, which is a key strength of The Sense­mak­er. The […]

Review: The Culture

Review: The Culture

The Cul­ture, starts before the per­form­ers come on stage with a mon­tage of video footage of news arti­cles on sys­temic and polit­i­cal misog­y­ny. This sets the scene for the every­day ways women are dis­ad­van­taged that are so embed­ded, that they often go unno­ticed. The news­feed soon fades out, the lights come up, and Will and […]

Review: Best on Tap Stands Up

Review: Best on Tap Stands Up

The Fringe Bar is packed to the gills for Best on Tap Stands Up, a lit­tle out of the ordi­nary for a Sun­day crowd, but this is a Fringe show and this is a Fringe crowd, and Best on Tap are an excel­lent­ly well-estab­lished per­for­mance com­pa­ny, so per­haps I should­n’t be sur­prised. More well-known as […]

Review: U R Here

Review: U R Here

Reviewed by Nadia Free­man U R Here is an invi­ta­tion to take things a lit­tle less seri­ous­ly, to for­get about the busi­ness of adult­hood and be play­ful. Set away from the day-to-day rhythm of urban liv­ing. Bar­bar­ian Pro­duc­tions draws us out to Mar­tin Luck­ie Park in Berham­pore. On arrival, my group is wel­comed by 80’s […]

Review: Access

Review: Access

Review by Nadia Free­man Read­ing the cues of human emo­tion is an inher­ent trait that we take for grant­ed. Some of us view emo­tion dif­fer­ent­ly from oth­ers or can find it more chal­leng­ing. Access, presents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to analyse this form of human expres­sion more close­ly. After col­lect­ing our tick­ets we are asked to wait […]