A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including: Loose Cannons, The Young And The Witless 7: Small Town, Big Hearts, and Into the Light.

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

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BATS - Out Of Site - Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington - THE YOUNG AND THE WITLESS 7: SMALL TOWN, BIG HEARTS: Fairly hums and froths with authentic soap opera spin
- reviewed by John Smythe (2)

Blimey! As played by a head-bandaged Steven Youngblood, Keith’s amnesia sure is a blow to the only stable relationship in town. He doesn’t even know who Gracie (Christine Brooks) is, let alone feel attracted to her. And she’s carrying their baby. Or is it?

What’s more it turns out, in the course of this episode ...

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BATS - Out Of Site - Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington - LOOSE CANNONS: All the crab puns you could want
- reviewed by Lucy O'Connor

The lights haven’t even dimmed and already the audience is in the zone for improvisation; high fives, dancing in the aisles, bursting laughter… The Loose Cannons performers will no doubt be pleased backstage.

It begins, of course, with drama.

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BATS - Out Of Site - Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington - INTO THE LIGHT: Small miracles
- reviewed by John Smythe

This is a format that clearly grows from the audience ‘ask-fors’, which makes for special viewing pleasure. The distillations of entire lifetimes and our recognition of many aspects of human experience also enrich what evolves.

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - BIRDS: Flight over fancy
- reviewed by Matt Baker

I was disappointed to hear that Dianna Fuemana’s play Birds lost funding halfway through rehearsals. I wasn’t surprised, as it wasn’t the only negative funding news I had heard yesterday (am I right?), but to reiterate, I was disappointed.

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Te Tumu, Otago University, Dunedin - TE TIRA PUHA: Journey of discovery
- reviewed by Rua McCallum

I applaud the performers’ use of the whole stage space and the multiple ways in which three or four simple boxes can be used. Several props are employed from time to time including a bicycle, all cleverly concealed behind the staging.

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BATS - Out Of Site - Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington - #DIVAS: Update inventiveness
- reviewed by John Smythe

It is in the Bats Out-of-Site bar, before their show starts, that the Wellington Improvisation Troupe (WIT)’s Divas garner their ‘ask fors’, in the form of pseudo Facebook status updates stored on a laptop.

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BATS - Out Of Site - Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington - SPARK: Witty one-liners and satisfying reincorporations
- reviewed by Hannah Smith

Spark is sharp. It stars three Melbourne improvisers – Rik Brown, Karl McConnell and Jason Geary – in a fifty-five minute narrative which is, of course, made up on the fly. In this performance the show takes the form of a gangster interrogation, New York City style: a couple of guys explaining to the boss how the deal went bad.

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BATS - Out Of Site - Cnr Cuba & Dixon, Wellington - OPENING CRUMPET: A lively and stimulating launch
- reviewed by John Smythe

This year’s NZ Improv Festival gets off to an excellent start with seven players from around NZ and a couple of Aussies plus two musicians offering Opening Crumpet, led by Wellington’s Christine Brooks.

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - BIRDS: A triumph of minimalism, poverty and heart
- reviewed by Johnny Givins

Dianna Fuemana has written a voice we have rarely heard. It is the voice of a poor PI Avondale ‘hood-lands’ young boy as he grows from a super energetic teenager into a complex young man.

He has a stressed single mum, he hates high school, he discovers sex, he gets angry, he gets depressed, he gets lost, and he lives in the park with his mates and is sent away to the homeland.

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Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland - KISS THE FISH: Safety with monkeys
- reviewed by Simon Wilson

Monkeys appear in the back of the auditorium, watching us, reaching up tentatively to the balcony, loping down towards the stage. In those monkeys, in those first moments, you get everything that’s wonderful about this show, and also one of the things that’s disappointing.

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Maidment, Auckland - LORD OF THE FLIES: Action-packed play serves Golding well
- reviewed by Gilbert Wong

William Golding would have loathed Survivor, if not for smug host Jeff Probst, then for its disservice to anthropology. The new age solemnity in the endless reality television series looks so bogus when compared to the dark power of Golding’s fable about the ease with which the spark of civilization can be snuffed out.

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - ABIGAIL’S PARTY: Majestically awful and very funny
- reviewed by Simon Wilson

When the desperately social Beverly invites her neighbours over for drinks, nobody is expecting a good time, but they’re all resigned to making the most of it. Social awkwardness plus alcohol: that’s life, after all. So the gin and Bacardi flow, and flow, the remarks fly, the anguish heaves itself around the room, and the unfettered needs of the characters, as they do, come tumbling out. It’s very funny.

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Fortune Theatre, Dunedin - GIFTED: Astonishingly joyful, mischievous theatre
- reviewed by Terry MacTavish

The narrative convention is wisely chosen: we see the mysterious young Janet Frame through the eyes of the older and more accessible Frank Sargeson. “Sometimes I think I made her up,” he says, as he shares with us his interpretation of her strange, elusive ways. We do not have the same direct line to Janet’s mind, puzzling out her curious cryptic word games along with Frank.

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Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland - KISS THE FISH: Head and heart clash in sweet, wise love story
- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton

Indian Ink's magical new show embodies qualities that make us proud to be Kiwis.

The magic of Indian Ink returns after a period of international touring with a new work that has the shrewdness of fable combined with the sweetness of a pop song.

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TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland - GWEN IN PURGATORY: Gentle look at worries over ageing matriarch
- reviewed by Janet McAllister

This 2010 Australian comedy-drama continues the year's mini-trend of realist, real-time shows, but it's refreshing to see contemporary anxieties onstage rather than historic ones, and to see dilemmas for people over 29 taken seriously.

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Circa One, Wellington - NO NAUGHTY BITS: Pertinent impertinence with panache
- reviewed by John Smythe

Do you have to have been there to get it? Is prior knowledge of the Monty Python phenomenon essential? Will it matter if the iconography of John Hodgkins’ set and Johann Nortje’s video projections, which pay splendid homage to Terry Gilliam’s animations for the TV series, is not recognised as such?

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Circa One, Wellington - NO NAUGHTY BITS: Naughty bits best left in
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

After the high seriousness of Arthur Miller’s The Price, Steve Thompson’s No Naughty Bits would on the face of it appear to be a play to put lots of bums on seats: a piece of frivolity about an incident from the history of team Python.

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Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland - KISS THE FISH: A fish worth kissing
- reviewed by Sharu Delilkan

The foyer of Q Theatre was like a Who’s Who of Auckland’s theatre industry last night – alive with anticipation of Indian Ink Theatre Company’s opening night of Kiss the Fish.

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St James Theatre, Wellington - THE FLYING DUTCHMAN: A thrill for the senses
- reviewed by Michael Gilchrist

Genuinely daring, fearlessly contemporary, utterly convincing. These are the descriptors that come to mind after this marvellous evening from NZ Opera. This production of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman – staged in the bicentenary of the composer’s birth – is in fact the first of a series of co-productions with Opera Queensland.

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Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland - KISS THE FISH: The fusion and cohesion of a good curry
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

Joined by a small but powerful cast to flesh out the other numerous characters, the script by Rajan and director Justin Lewis is essentially a classic folk tale about life on a small Indian island, where humble rice farmers struggle to proudly maintain their simple lifestyle in the face of their affluent, powerful neighbours’ fiscally driven push for progress.

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Rudolf Steiner School Theatre, Christchurch - I, GEORGE NEPIA: Simply captivating
- reviewed by Lindsay Clark

It is the turn of Christchurch, home after all of the erstwhile Lancaster Park, to enjoy the pleasure of this well-crafted New Zealand play, directed and delivered with finely tuned finesse. It has been acclaimed wherever played and now we know why.

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The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - ABIGAIL’S PARTY: Underlying tensions and shifting alliances
- reviewed by Janet McAllister

This early comedy by Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake) unfolds as if David Brent from The Office had turned into a female beauty therapist and decided to have the neighbours around for drinks. While this production doesn't turn up the awkward ante to full over two and a half hours (including intermission), there is a little trainwreck frisson near the end.

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Aurora Centre, Christchurch - BLACK GRACE: VAKA: Pulsating and thrilling performance
- reviewed by Toby Behan

Ieremia also displays a command of patterning of group-based movement that is second to none in the contemporary dance scene here. A close observation of the intricate dense group-based movement passages, including placement and pathways, watching new material introduced seamlessly into a unison phrase by splitting the group in halves, thirds and quarters, is an instructive delight. The easy road is never taken for the duration of the evening’s performance – with the dancers pushed to the limits to execute the precise choreography within defined physical boundaries, interspatial group relationships and also split-second timing. The joys of watching the rhythms (provided by a variety of musicians including Salmonella Dub, Trinity Roots and Fat Freddy’s Drop) so perfectly executed by the superbly disciplined dancers are palpable.

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TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland - GWEN IN PURGATORY: Family dynamics deftly depicted
- reviewed by Sharu Delilkan

Rachael Walker’s seemingly simple set for Gwen in Purgatory belies the emerging complexity of interaction between a rich tapestry of family members doing their best [or worst] for their elderly mother or grandparent.

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TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland - GWEN IN PURGATORY: Thoroughly enjoyable
- reviewed by Shirin Brown

Gwen in Purgatory provides an excellent example of inspired characterisation from playwright Tommy Murphy and the actors, and strong directing by Katherine McRae.

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CHRISTCHURCH FOOTBALL CLUB, Christchurch - PARTY WITH THE AUNTIES: Funny, warm, energetic with impeccable comic timing
- reviewed by Erin Harrington

The three performers ... play twelve characters between them ... with dexterity and humour, relying on voice and movement, rather than props and costume, to convey these quick changes. The characterisations, which sometimes draw from broad stereotypes, are nonetheless finely pitched.

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Regent Theatre, Dunedin - TRACES: Funny, touching, joyous, beautiful, accessible, stunning …
- reviewed by Patrick Davies

What is in the Canadian waters? Robert Le Page, Cirque de Soleil and now to our shores comes Traces. Perfection.

“Les 7 doigts de la main” is a play on a French saying “les cinq doigts de la main” – “five fingers of the hand”, whereby five separate parts combine, as in gestalt, to produce something greater than the sum of the parts; to be in a cohesive group towards one direction. What Dunedin witnessed last night was truly great.

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Newtown Community Centre, Wellington - KAITIAKI: Innocent surrealism and whimsy but simplistic
- reviewed by Hannah Smith

The story is episodic – discrete sections that take place in different parts of the hall – and we are guided on from place to place by the numerous characters. Plot strands come and go without being fully explained or integrated, meaning that some things are set up without a payoff being delivered (the kereru and the berries, the creature behind the door).

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

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