The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of Kiss the Fish, Blood Brothers, Putorino Hill, and Mana Wahine.

See more recent reviews at theatreview.org, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory.

* * *

The latest Theatreview Weekly includes reviews of Kiss the Fish, Blood Brothers, Putorino Hill, and Mana Wahine.

See more recent reviews at theatreview.org, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory.

* * *

PUTORINO HILL: Compelling truth in quest for redemption

BATS Theatre (Out Of Site), Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington
- reviewed by John Smythe

Coincidentally the world premiere season of Putorino Hill has opened on the day Rolf Harris is found guilty of sexual assault crimes and exposed as duplicitous. ...
The repercussions of blind loyalty are up for question here, in Chris Molloy’s provocatively evocative play, developed in rehearsal – according to a programme note – by investigating aspects of the thriller genre, with Te Kohe Tuhaka at the directorial helm.

------------------------------------------------------------------

KISS THE FISH: Satisfying tale with beguiling simplicity
Opera House, Wellington

- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

The basic story of Kiss the Fish takes the familiar themes of progress versus tradition, the complications of love, and the ties of family life. It is a story told with a beguiling simplicity, at times comic, at times touching, always surprising.

A poor rice farmer is offered a large amount of money for some land and water rights by Kingsley, a rich Dutch entrepreneur, who wants to build a luxury holiday resort. The rice farmer refuses the offer because he hates the Dutch and in fact all foreigners.

------------------------------------------------------------------

THE MERCY CLAUSE: Endlessly unsettling
Centrepoint, Palmerston North
- reviewed by John Ross

Without giving too much away, one can say that despite one’s early misgivings, the play works out far more effectively and cleverly than the earlier scenes suggested it might, although some ends are left loose. What future can there be for Tom and Rachel’s marriage?

------------------------------------------------------------------

BLOOD BROTHERS: Deeply human and durable
Court Theatre, Bernard Street, Addington, Christchurch
- reviewed by Lindsay Clark

A good tale is always worth retelling, especially a musical version and especially if the playwright, composer and lyricist is Willy Russell, who always has something worth saying. It is a long way from the 1844 novella The Corsican Brothers by Alexandre Dumas but the 1983 variation on the theme of twin boys, here Michael and Edward Johnstone, separated at birth and raised in starkly contrasting conditions, provides all the tensions of entertaining melodrama as well as a focus for more thoughtful observation.

------------------------------------------------------------------

SHAKESPEARE'S PROBLEMS: Keeping the Bard’s words breathing
The Lucha Lounge, 1 York St Newmarket, Auckland
- reviewed by Robbie Nicol

t’s not polished, it’s heavily abbreviated, and it’s by no means the clearest performance of Shakespeare you will ever see, but Shakespeare’s Problems is fun in a rough and ready way that just works.

I feel a little uncomfortable when I first arrive. All seating is audience seating, and the actors are already wandering about in character. I don’t know what to say to them, and sometimes they don’t seem sure what to say to me.

------------------------------------------------------------------

MANA WAHINE: The best of collaborations
Civic Theatre, Rotorua
- reviewed by Amy Chakif

Wiriwiri and pukana thread through the dance that is sometimes ethereal, sometimes surreal, and sometimes urban. The all-female dance company execute a rich diversity of movement; muscular, sensitive, graceful and often powerfully discordant. Dancers Maria Munkowits, Nancy Wijohn, Jana Castillo, Chrissy Kokiri and Biana Hyslop are stunning in their physicality and strength, and breath-taking in their femininity.

------------------------------------------------------------------

STAND UP LOVE: Curiously intimate perspective on despair
Allen Hall Theatre, University of Otago, Dunedin
- reviewed by Kimberley Buchan

Gavin McGibbon’s Stand Up Love is the story of a fraught relationship between a declining stand-up comedian and his muted girlfriend Ana, played by Nell Guy. The play begins when red flags are already appearing in the relationship.

Freddy (Orion Carey Clark) plays the stereotype of the moody comedian with a dark side, who unfortunately is not a successful enough comedian to balance out his misery.

------------------------------------------------------------------

CHARANDAS CHOR: THE HONEST THIEF: Timeless examination of humanity’s perennial concerns of identity, purpose, integrity and community
TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

Local Indian theatre company Prayas has joined forces with the intrepid TAPAC to produce a full-scale ensemble production of a beloved folktale originally conceived by Rajasthan author Vijaydan Detha. Charandas Chor is a rich, funny and heart-warming fable about a proud and unusually principled thief who pledges to his guru, among other things, that he shall not lie.

------------------------------------------------------------------

KISS THE FISH: Timeless yet topical tale told through richly exquisite ‘fusion theatre’
Opera House, Wellington

- reviewed by John Smythe

It is, of course, the commedia masks, beautifully hand-carved from wood in the Balinese style by Wayan Tanguuh that (along with the puppet) allow the highly skilled quartet of actors to bring the 11 characters and their stories to life with a delightful simplicity that belies the many hours undoubtedly spent discovering their essential qualities and quirks, abetted by director and theatrical alchemist Justin Lewis.

------------------------------------------------------------------

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS: Zeal pushes comedy towards farce

Whitireia Performance Centre, 25-27 Vivian Street, Wellington
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

On entering the foyer of the Whitireia Performance Centre you are confronted with a number of actors and audience dancing to music played and sung by the excellent Sunny Daze and The Sunbeams (a spot-on name for a 1950s band).

In the theatre the play begins with the citizens of Ephesus dancing a dance that is somewhere between jitterbug and rock’n’roll. It is a bustling city where, as the programme states, “the younger generation were finding their voice.”

------------------------------------------------------------------

See more recent reviews at theatreview.org.nz, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory

Further information:

What began as a glorified blog by John Smythe has now become a major organ of communication, interaction and information that has created an online performing arts community by recording, critiquing, celebrating and debating NZ’s professional performing arts activity.

If you value Theatreview, and want to see it survive and grow to further serve the interests and needs of the performing arts community and their audiences, please join the Performing Arts Directory or offer a donation/koha