 reviewed by John Smythe 5 Jul 2009 |
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Excellence on every level The game four school friends play in the opening sequence – 4-Square – is boxed in, has strict rules and is very competitive. Failure, success, delight and (yes) danger at individual and group levels interweave with random twists that keep all players – and their audience – on their toes. [more] |
 reviewed by John Smythe 6 Jul 2009 |
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Farcical elements brought to the fore In essence Joe Orton’s first major play is a darkly comic cautionary tale about the dangers of repressing homosexuality at individual, family and social levels. Everything flows from that premise. As such it is a museum piece, firmly rooted in the 1960s when being queer was a crime ... [more] |
 reviewed by John Smythe 9 Jul 2009 |
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From spectacle to minimal, its all about truth Although Slava’s a no show in this snowshow there remains no show like Slava’s Snowshow. It offers true clowning of the highest order. [more] |
 reviewed by John Smythe 11 Jul 2009 |
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Light relief between two important new works Vivienne Plumb, Georgina Titheridge and Miria George are the three playwrights who pitched their ideas two years ago and won commissions to write this year’s Young and Hungry trilogy. The luxury of being allowed large casts, plus the constraint of a 50-minute timeslot in a space to be shared, have produced three very different results. [more] |
 reviewed by John Smythe 19 Jul 2009 |
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A ripping if fatuous yarn skilfully told If utter jolly trivia in the style of Michael Palin & Terry Jones’ Ripping Yarns, with a whiff of the Goon Show, is your idea of a good night out; if watching really clever actors being really clever helps you escape these troubled times, then make sure you see The 39 Steps at Circa. [more] |
 reviewed by John Smythe 21 Jul 2009 |
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Groups E & A: departures and poignant profiles Once more the non-descript Te Whaea basement area, affectionately known as The SEEyD Space,* houses the inevitably eclectic range of solo shows, created and performed by this year’s graduands of Toi Whakaari’s Bachelor of Performing Arts (Acting). [more] |
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CHRISTIE IN LOVE at Southern Cross Restaurant & Bar reviewed by John Smythe 23 Jul 2009 |
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Provocative nourishment at lunchtime In the immediate aftermath of the Clayton Weatherston trial, there is a bizarre serendipity in Rattling Tongues’ first choice: a short play inspired by the actual case of John Reginald Halliday Christie who, in post WW2 England, murdered at least six women and hid or buried them at 10 Rillington Place. As Howard Brenton portrays him, he blames the women who made him feel inadequate and the ‘tarts’ in the street enticed him into having sex. [more] |
 reviewed by John Smythe 24 Jul 2009 |
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Clarity and delight What Sarah Delahunty has done ... is trimmed it back to Shakespeare’s version of the Boccaccio plot, given it a jazzy 1920s look, integrated increasingly sardonic songs about the nature of love, pitched it as a soap opera and added a question mark to the title. It works a treat. [more] |
 reviewed by John Smythe 26 Aug 2009 |
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Eight bites of the Apple Two Off-Broadway shows, one freebie in Central Park and five Fringe shows sweetened my too-few days in the Big Apple. [more] |
 reviewed by John Smythe 27 Aug 2009 |
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Fresh, nutritious and deeply entertaining This intriguingly elusive evocation of an OE experience begins as a straight-forward narrative and turns out to be a great deal more. What starts as a faintly prosaic story of place v displacement morphs into a positively poetic manifestation of personalities-at-war in conflict with a centred sense of identity. [more] |
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