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DOG SEES GOD: CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BLOCKHEAD at BATS
reviewed by John Smythe 4 Aug 2010
Good grief?
It starts and ends with a funeral, which aligns with the palindrome title: dog sees god. The first is for CB’s dog, which only his sister turns up for. But everyone is there for the group counselling session following the suicide of … one of their number. [more]

PAPER SCISSORS ROCK at BATS
reviewed by John Smythe 6 Aug 2010
When the house of cards called family collapses …
So why is Penny, a young adult daughter who has gone to the trouble of writing a song in celebration of her mother’s 50th birthday, so awkward and embarrassed when she comes to sing it to her own ukulele accompaniment? [more]

THE FIERCENESS at Downstage Theatre
reviewed by John Smythe 6 Aug 2010
Made for loving, baby
What can you say about a show that sells out its season – albeit just 3 nights of it, but at Downstage this time, not Bats – before it even opens? Since they first formed in 2005, The Real Hot Bitches have developed a strong following that arguably exceeds the friends and whanau of the 30-odd performers plus creative, production and backstage crew that make up this year’s team. [more]

AUNTIE & ME at Opera House
reviewed by John Smythe 16 Aug 2010
Dire
Can this really be the same play Peter Hawes called “one of the great existential plays”, and John Ross called “a prodigiously clever black comedy, with moments of farce”, when they reviewed Centrepoint Theatre’s 2008 production ...? [more]

THE DECEMBER BROTHER at Downstage Theatre
reviewed by John Smythe 16 Aug 2010
A richly layered work of extraordinary substance
Tim Spite is a true theatre artist. He draws inspiration from what in his own life, family, community, country and world prods his inquisitiveness, concerns and passions, then he forms development and production units to create plays that could not happen any other way. [more]

Photo: Stephen A'Court
MY FIRST TIME at Circa One
reviewed by John Smythe 5 Sep 2010
Losing it together
My first time was Off Broadway ... It was a largely sedentary, repetitive, sort of plastic-coated experience of which I soon tired … But if My First Time … has a moral, it is not to let a disappointing first time taint the times that follow. This Ross Jolly-directed rendition … is richer in every respect. [more]

CIRQUE MOTHER AFRICA at St James Theatre
reviewed by John Smythe 12 Sep 2010
Spectacle with a message
There is no aerial work in this show; it is song, dance, acrobatics, feats of strength, contortion and juggling – with all manner of objects and bodies – all packaged in African sensuality, which is lively, joyful, pumping with energy and happily devoid of vamp, camp or sleaze. [more]

RESOLVE at BATS
reviewed by John Smythe 22 Sep 2010
Changing perceptions
As with Odd Socks Productions’ Words Apart last year, also directed by Nicola Clements, Resolve aims to share the hearing-impaired experience, both to ‘hold the mirror up’ for the Deaf community and to expand the perceptions and understandings of the hearing community. But this time the spoken word is minimal. [more]

THUMBELINA at 4 Moncrieff St., Mt. Victoria
reviewed by John Smythe 25 Sep 2010
Lively, witty and involving
Rachel More has ingeniously updated this tale from Hans Christian Andersen ... The central premise remains: a woman unable to have a child appeals to the Fairies to help her; she plants a special seed as per their instructions; a flower grows and from its centre a tiny daughter emerges ... [more]

INNOCENCE at Te Whaea National Dance and Drama Centre, 11 Hutchison Rd, Newtown
reviewed by John Smythe 5 Oct 2010
Delusions of innocence
I wonder if German playwright Dea Loher would ever have graced a Wellington stage if Sebastian Sommer had not chosen her Innocence for his major Master of Theatre Arts in Directing (MTA)* production. [more]
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