A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including In Flagrante, The First Asian AB, Verse 2 and Station to Station.

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

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A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including In Flagrante, The First Asian AB, Verse 2 and Station to Station.

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

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St James Theatre 1st Floor Gallery, Wellington - IN FLAGRANTE: Synchronized Undressage!

- reviewed by Greer Robertson

Toned and topless, six well rehearsed performers bare their just about all in a movement to music, pseudo presentation a la Penthouse Magazine manner. Groups of mature adults languish around candlelit tables; a relaxed atmosphere is omnipresent; food, wine and cocktails flow; the girls are on an elevated stage. Sometimes the audience titters. It’s hard to read what they are thinking.

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Basement Theatre, Auckland - THE FIRST ASIAN A* B*: Plenty of laughs and a whole lot of honesty

- reviewed by Joanna Page

Between them, writer Renee Liang and director Edward Peni have created genuine, atypical-Kiwi characters who are deftly brought to life by Benjamin Teh (Willie) and Paul Fagamalo (Mook).

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Opera House, Wellington - VERSE 2: All things change - even Black Grace

- reviewed by Greer Robertson

Overall, the polished performance of Black Graces’ profound energy, rhythm and grace remains the same, but the art of communication stops at the proscenium. What about the audience? I needed and wanted more!

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Theatre Royal, Nelson - STATION TO STATION: Pushes boundaries with strong message

- reviewed by Gail Tresidder

Although this plot has more holes in it than the proverbial sieve, taken as an allegory it works very well.

Lead and author, Michael Galvin is impressive and smooth as Simon, the silky-tongued evangelist turned zealot – smooth enough not to get his hands dirty when it comes to the messy business of killing.

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Q Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland - VENUS IS...: Extreme physicality, intense lyricism and eroticism

- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton

If Telecom had not dropped the abstain campaign it would almost certainly have been blown out of the water by Dust Palace's exuberant paean to the joys of erotic indulgence.

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Centrepoint, Palmerston North - THE THIRTY NINE STEPS: Clever Dicks in melodramatic derring-do

- reviewed by Richard Mays

Clever Dicks these theatre folk. Programming a show to have traction and audience appeal while the Rugby World Cup dominates most facets of life on this corner of the planet, must’ve caused a few nightmares at Centrepoint. Fortunately, they’ve hit on a dream prescription ...

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Centrepoint, Palmerston North - THE THIRTY NINE STEPS: Thriller comedy balance enjoyably achieved

- reviewed by John Ross

It’s mid-1914, with war seeming increasingly likely – but will Britain be absolutely dragged ‘into the abyss’? Will the gallant Richard Hannay and his ally the elegant Mrs Urquhart thwart a fiendishly ingenious conspiracy devised by some dreaded Huns, to bring that about? You might well ask.

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Circa Two, Wellington - I, GEORGE NEPIA: Moving tribute to rugby legend beautifully balanced

- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

Hone Kouka’s loving portrait of possibly the greatest rugby player this country has produced is a fine piece of solo theatre: simple, direct, wryly comic, and with a poetic touch that allows us, with the aid of Jarod Rawiri’s polished and technically assured performance of many characters and Jason Te Kare’s brilliant direction and Robert Larsen’s production design, to believe that we know the man behind the legend.

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The Civic – THE EDGE®, Auckland - THE WIZARD OF OZ: A timeless classic well wrought

- reviewed by Nik Smythe

It has a lot to live up to – and now, having seen it, I am confident they will not be disappointed. Auckland’s youngest large-scale theatre veteran Jesse Peach has produced and directed an accomplished company in a delightful rendition of the best-known musical of all time.

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Maidment, Auckland - THE END OF THE GOLDEN WEATHER: Young cast bask in Weather’s brilliance

- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton

If a classic is defined as a work that stands the test of time, The End of the Golden Weather is doing a solid job of earning the accolade. Around 50 years after it was written, Bruce Mason's masterpiece continues to astound, entertain and reveal deeper levels of meaning.

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Paramount, Wellington - MONSTER BURLESQUE: Outrageously silly, often thought-provoking and sometimes sexy

- reviewed by Greer Robertson

The performers give their all with a strong thread of commitment and passion in everything they do. From the incredibly experienced talented female comic to the immensely demonstrative acclaimed contemporary dance soloist, there is something for everyone.

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Q Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland - VENUS IS...: Definitely a show to see more than once

- reviewed by Raewyn Whyte

Venus has long been renowned as the Roman goddess of love and beauty, sexuality and fertility, honour and pleasure, lust and desire. These aspects are all intertwined within her realm, making her the go-to woman when things go wrong. In the guise of a white-painted caryatid shrouded by a curtain of aerial silks, standing in a pool of sand, Venus herself (Colleen Davis) initially presides over the splendid aerial theatre work Venus Is... newly devised by The Dust Palace, set in the lavishly furnished salon otherwise known as Q Loft. Think Bacchanal minus food, wine and slaves, and you have the general idea.

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BATS, Wellington - SLOUCHING TOWARD BETHLEHEM: Be careful what you wish for

- reviewed by Lynn Freeman

You can rely on Dean Parker to deliver a no-holds-barred political satire, though this critique of Sir Robert Muldoon starts off with a great deal of sympathy for the short, poor bullied young Rob whose father was in an asylum.

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Q, 305 Queen St, Auckland - RAISING THE TITANICS: Feel good crowd pleaser

- reviewed by Nik Smythe (2)

Over a year down the track and, like the feelgood fun-time showbands that the title and play reflect, the Titanics are still on tour! What’s more, those plucky young Smackbang kids have scored a historic coup in christening the Rangatira Theatre at the mammothly anticipated Q, right there on the Auckland Town Hall strip.

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Circa Two, Wellington - I, GEORGE NEPIA: A superbly natural taonga

- reviewed by John Smythe

It takes supreme skill and a quiet confidence to distil this life-story, involving iconic moments of rugby history, down to a 75 minute solo performance, abetted by some equally simple and very effective design elements ...

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BATS, Wellington - SKETCH: Too good an idea not to be a full length play

- reviewed by John Smythe

The quests for engagement, connection, communication – if necessary through confrontation, provocation and/or shock – are ever-present in arts practice, and in life, and so it is with Kate Morris’s Sketch, directed by Eleanor Bishop.

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BATS, Wellington - SKETCH: Extreme edge to bold production

- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

Sketch is an admirably ambitious play and it has been given a well-mounted production by Eleanor Bishop and her designer, Alice Hill, and her sound and lighting designer, Thomas Press. Her eight actors all give strong, straightforward performances of familiar stereotypes of the fashionable art world.

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

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