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Auckland Festival 2009
TEMPEST: WITHOUT A BODY at ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre
reviewed by Nik Smythe 6 Mar 2009
Turmoil and suffering produce lasting impressions
It’s difficult at the best of times to evoke the experience of a theatrical encounter in the structural, mental form of words combined into sentences… To even describe let alone evoke the raw, visceral, painful, spiritual, emotionally violent, existential experience of MAU Theatre is frankly impossible. So here goes: [more]

BURLESQUE AS YOU LIKE IT – NOT A FAMILY SHOW at The Basement, Lower Greys Ave
reviewed by Candice Lewis 6 Mar 2009
Pretty good bang for your buck
Arriving late is inadvisable; we scraped in by the skin of our teeth due to the nightmare of finding a car park. My complimentary tickets had been sold and we were lucky that a man who knew I wasn’t pretending to be a reviewer was within earshot. We hotfoot it to the bar and grab a generously poured wine then scuttle inside. [more]

Auckland Festival 2009
LA CLIQUE at The Spiegeltent
reviewed by Nik Smythe 6 Mar 2009
Fun provokes frenzy
The festival programme copy calls tells us La Clique is mesmerizing, sexy, wild… Captivating certainly if not mesmerically entrancing; risqué and raunchy if not (entirely) erotic; but while the audience was stirred to what could for an Auckland audience be described as a frenzy, this crew is evidently in virtually complete control of what they are doing. [more]

Dreaming Festival
TE KARAKIA at Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, The Edge
reviewed by Janet McAllister (New Zealand Herald) 6 Mar 2009
“They got me: I cried”
“They got me: I cried” If there's a genre that local playwrights – usually Maori – have made their own, it's high-tension family drama. They deal with potentially deathly topics like cultural identity and land politics in a compelling way, calculated to leave no dry eye in the house. [more]

STRANGE RESTING PLACES at The Pumphouse, Takapuna
reviewed by Kate Ward-Smythe 5 Mar 2009
Easy charm, great humour, natural delivery
Strange Resting Places has been performed and reviewed many times since its debut 2 years ago, testament to its enduring relevance and popular appeal as a play that speaks with great heart to its audience. [more]

HATCH - OR THE PLIGHT OF THE PENGUINS at Circa Two
reviewed by Laurie Atkinson (The Dominion Post) 5 Mar 2009
A brilliant insight into Victorian times
With over 150 performances played all over the country we are able at last to see Stuart Devenie’s remarkable performance as Mr. Joseph Hatch, chemist, Mayor of Invercargill, Member of Parliament, entrepreneur and slaughterer of two million penguins for their oil on Macquarie Island. [more]

THE RODWELL MONOLOGUES at BATS
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan 4 Mar 2009
Romping, roaring aplomb
“Clown as comic fool” was not the notion, but the foibles, fears, frustrations and ironies of life caught in close encounters within the family, or with the next door neighbour or the supermarket check-out girl gave plenty of scope for anti-heroic characters. [more]

HATCH - OR THE PLIGHT OF THE PENGUINS at Circa Two
reviewed by John Smythe 4 Mar 2009
Ingeniously insidious
This play works on three levels: as an insight into our 19th century history; as a provocative challenge to contemporary environmental and economic values; as a portrait of an ageing entrepreneur fighting hypocrisy to regain his livelihood and grieving for his only son. [more]

Auckland Fringe 09
CONSPIRACY 911 at The Basement, Lower Greys Ave
reviewed by Jessie Kollen 4 Mar 2009
Light-hearted gloss on darker threads of conspiracy hysteria
9/11 meets 1984. From Prozac, Building Seven and Freemasonry to shape shifting lizards, there’s a conspiracy in this play to suit every budding theorist. [more]

NZ Fringe Festival 09
SUITCASE at BATS
reviewed by Lynn Freeman (Capital Times) 4 Mar 2009
Feel good theatre
Six months of devising went into Suitcase and it shows in the work. [more]
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