The Wellingtonista

Random stuff about Wellington since 2005

BATS Theatre

Review – Oddacity

by Sophie March 9, 2020

Oddacity promised an “award-winning, best-of spectacular with a cast of international luminaries performing stylish acts”, under the beautiful skylight in Bats’ Heyday Dome.   I wasn’t sure what to expect, knowing the theatre wouldn’t suit aerials or acrobatics, but I hoped  for clowns.  I was not disappointed in that sense. Oddacity is usually Sachie Mikawa, Trent […]

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Review: DND Live at the Fringe: When Dwarves Cry

by Sophie March 9, 2020

I wouldn’t necessarily say that Dungeons and Dragons has gone mainstream, but it’s become a lot more popular in the last twenty years.  It probably helps that there are so many TV shows these days with a fantasy element, as well as movies like the Lord of the Rings series making sword-and-sorcery stuff cooler. DnD […]

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Review: Dance me to the end

by librarykris February 13, 2020

Director Carrie Thiel is seeking to “create connectivity using multimedia, motion capture and virtual reality technologies in a theatre setting.” Working with professional dancer Laura Jones, sound designer Chris Winter and 3D180 VR filmmaker Ed Davis, she’s brought together something that’s quite special.  The performance itself is short and is designed as a ‘proof of […]

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Review: STUPID BITCH wants a puppy

by librarykris February 12, 2020

This is a ‘tune up’ of 2018’s STUPID BITCH which played in a dance studio above Cuba Street in the Fringe Festival. As a work in development it garnered actor/writer Claire Waldron nominations for Outstanding Performer in the Wellington and Dunedin Fringe Festivals. This time around it’s at BATS Theatre in The Heyday Dome. Waldron […]

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Review: Death Comes To Us All

by Emma Maguire August 28, 2019

Death takes her by the hand, leads her to a pool of light at the apron of the stage and she tells us her last moments. There’s light at the end, she says, and disappears off stage. I sniff, a little, and hold back tears. Death Comes To Us All is a remarkably honest, very […]

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Review: High School Magical: The Reunion

by Emma Maguire July 24, 2019

We all know Harry Potter, right? The lovely folks over at Playshop have turned its basic premise into an improv show called High School Magical, full of hi-jinks and comedy of the wizarding sort. It’s ten years since the Chosen One (who I presume is gifted the title by the audience each show, but was […]

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Review: Ideation

by librarykris July 1, 2019

A team of ‘management consultants’ are recalled from their project overseas in order to work on an urgent proposal. The question in front of them – if there was a deadly virus that killed the carrier and easily infected others, how would you contain it without alarming the community? As they start to work through […]

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Review: Digging to Cambodia

by librarykris June 14, 2019

Sarita So revisits her Toi Whakaari solo show, turning it onto a longer exploration of making memory and history telling. “Through words, movement and songs from Cambodia’s 1960’s rock era – Digging to Cambodia is a letter to her past, present and future self, it asks us all “What is worth remembering?”” So wears a […]

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Review: Windigo

by librarykris June 13, 2019

Wow, did I misunderstand the marketing for this show. “Fierce and visceral, Windigo resonates like a scream, the vibrant echo of a long history of hu-man ransacking and destruction, a violation of a land and its culture.” I went in bracing myself for the emotional equivalent of a hurricane. This is not that. For me, […]

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Review: The Weekend

by librarykris June 12, 2019

Lara has only the weekend to track down her partner as she traverses the world of public housing, drug dealing, and addiction. The Weekend is based on a situation that first time playwright that Henrietta Baird (from Kuku Yalanji/Yidinji country in Queensland’s Far North) experienced. From this she’s written an extremely funny, emotionally horrifying one-woman […]

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