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TE KAUPOI at BATS
reviewed by Helen Sims 11 Jun 2010
Worth seeing despite flaws
Te Kaupoi commences with a presentation of diverse images – a backlit rodeo rider, a woman with a kete and a gun, and a young woman lying moaning on the ground after a beating. The clipped voice of the radio news announcer of Radio One, “for freedom, fraternity and fidelity” updates the concerned public on the latest in the battle against Maori terrorists. [more]

SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET at Maidment
reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton (New Zealand Herald) 9 Jun 2010
Sharp casting gives edge to demon barber’s tale
Stephen Sondheim’s musical version of Sweeney Todd is a brilliant, bloodthirsty thriller that has the emotional intensity and moral discernment of a Greek tragedy. [more]

TAPE at The Wine Cellar, St Kevins Arcade (K Rd)
reviewed by Sian Robertson 9 Jun 2010
Gritty and witty psychological roller coaster
The Wine Cellar, with its scruffy intimacy and comfy couches, is the perfect venue for a play that takes place entirely in a trashed hostel room. We get up close and personal with three high school friends as events bring them together into a fraught and joyless reunion ten years on. [more]

photo: Ross Brown
CARMEN at St James Theatre
reviewed by Deirdre Tarrant (Capital Times) 9 Jun 2010
International Flavour
This Carmen has a Brazilian setting danced by a virtual united nations of performers. This is a story that has instant recognition yet still pulls at a personal moral response as the attraction of living dangerously, vicariously and totally selfishly holds a dark appeal. [more]

PYGMALION at Rose Centre Belmont
reviewed by Adey Ramsel 7 Jun 2010
Not Shaw
We know we’re in trouble when the Director states in his programme notes that he has come to the job with no pre-conceived ideas and has neither seen the play staged before or indeed the more famous musical based upon it. This may be ideal for modern theatre and a modern interpretation of a classic but you do need to have a grasp of the themes and at least understand the characters. [more]

photo: Ross Brown
CARMEN at St James Theatre
reviewed by Lyne Pringle 7 Jun 2010
Enjoyable, entertaining and safe
Choreographer and Didy Veldman and director Patricia Boyle first staged this balletic interpretation of Carmen for the Royal New Zealand Ballet a few years back after the initial premier for the Northern Ballet Theatre (England) in 1999. Seeing it now in 2010, the choreography and theatrical devices seem dated. [more]

photo: Ross Brown
CARMEN at St James Theatre
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan (The Dominion Post) 7 Jun 2010
Street life spills on to ballet stage in sizzling Carmen
The dancers swift or slow, slick or sexy, seedy or smart, step their way into and out of trouble. Factory girls and policemen make expressive use of every move, and females isolate the pelvis in a way that needs no surtitles. This sophisticated ballet is set in the heat of Rio de Janeiro. [more]

WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING at Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, The Edge
reviewed by Janet McAllister (New Zealand Herald) 7 Jun 2010
Dark and disturbing tale of tragedy
God, this is bleak – fabulously so. An excellent production of a near-brilliant epic, it piles aching misery on tragic crisis on disturbing horror. Australian playwright Andrew Bovell pushes past family melodrama to find something so dark it makes Arthur Miller's characters seem self-indulgent and screechy. [more]

FAUX REAL at The Basement, Lower Greys Ave
reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton (New Zealand Herald) 7 Jun 2010
Goofy jaunt through the subconscious
Solo performer Gareth Williams takes us on a delightfully whimsical journey inside his head and gives credence to the psychological theory that dreams can reveal parts of the self that have been ignored, rejected or suppressed. [more]

SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET at Maidment
reviewed by Sian Robertson 6 Jun 2010
Vividly interpreted commentary on the grimness of life in Victorian London
My expectations of Peach Theatre Company’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s acclaimed musical thriller were based on having seen the Tim Burton film, which I didn’t like. What it lacked that this production has, is a Sweeney Todd you can sympathise with. [more]
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