 reviewed by Richard Mays 10 Sep 2012 |
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Retro cop caper a joyfully reconstructed jaunt Yes, even the cops got ever so slightly shaggy(!) under their dark blue custodian helmets in the early ’70s, with over-the-collar hair, sideburns and upper lip facial-fungus. And while Well Hung may look like a New Zealand slapstick stage take on the British and American Life On Mars TV series, this play by Robert Lord actually does come from ‘Mars’, making its stage debut at Wellington’s Downstage in 1974. [more] |
 reviewed by Ewen Coleman (The Dominion Post) 10 Sep 2012 |
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True colours on show When creating his play Clybourne Park, currently playing at Circa, American writer Bruce Norris probably never realised how relevant his themes would be to New Zealand situations. But the changing demographics of communities and the impact of this on the real estate of an area, which is at the heart of Norris’s play, have been issues within NZ for many decades and will no doubt resonate with Kiwi audiences. [more] |
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reviewed by John Smythe 10 Sep 2012 |
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Exposing hypocrisy deliciously Thanks largely to the Steppenwolf Theatre of Chicago, with which Bruce Norris is associated as an actor and playwright, he saw seven of his plays produced over 14 years before going on to hit the jackpot with Clybourne Park. More often than not, that’s what it takes to grow excellent playwrights. Director Ross Jolly scored the rights to it after it won the Olivier, Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard Best Play awards in 2010 and before it won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2011 and Tony Award for Best Play this year. [more] |
 reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton (New Zealand Herald) 10 Sep 2012 |
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Slick pastiche reboots Coward for modern audience Director Shane Bosher has created an emphatically contemporary interpretation of Private Lives, designed to introduce a new generation of theatre-goers to Noel Coward's scintillating wit and exquisite sense of structure. [more] |
 reviewed by Ewen Coleman (The Dominion Post) 10 Sep 2012 |
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Harcourt family’s life history full of vibrancy Although it is fourteen years since Kate and Miranda Harcourt’s Flowers From My Mother’s Garden was first seen at the 1998 NZ International Arts Festival, the telling of their life stories has lost none of its impact. [more] |
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reviewed by John Ross 10 Sep 2012 |
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Still edible if a little gamey This is cop-show/whodunnit as farce, and very farcical and amusing the action and the characters increasingly become. It gets hard for a reviewer to say much directly about the action without giving away its power to surprise. Let’s just say that in the shift from comedy towards farce, the play is reasonably successful in treading a fine line between plausible yet ridiculous human behaviour and utter absurdity... [more] |
 reviewed by Barbara Snook 10 Sep 2012 |
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Youth dancers achieve very high standards The theme of Precious Things saw articles being placed on a table at the front of the stage as each item progressed, providing a link throughout the programme. The dance Precious, choreographed by Janine Parkes, was a highlight of the second half with the dancers moving fluidly through a series of trust motifs designed to demonstrate the fragility and preciousness of life itself. The ensemble work was strong and provided opportunities for the dancers to display their technical skills. [more] |
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reviewed by John Smythe 8 Sep 2012 |
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A wonderfully rewarding sharing of experience So this is Stuart distilling and scripting Miranda’s quest to tell Kate’s story from her earliest memory until around the time Miranda left home; when the daughter’s ‘finding herself’ in Australia echoed her mother’s young adult adventures in Britain, where she’d gone by boat to learn singing. [more] |
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reviewed by Melisa Martin 8 Sep 2012 |
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Perfect mis-matching For a play about relationships, you buy a ticket, you take your seat, and you settle in for a couple of hours of relationship mayhem. But Silo’s season of the sparkling 1930’s Noel Coward comedy Private Lives, which opened last night at Auckland’s Q Theatre, is so much more than a play about relationships. [more] |
 reviewed by Ewen Coleman (The Dominion Post) 7 Sep 2012 |
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Raw edge in tale of four underdogs It’s not often that we get to see a theatre group from South Auckland performing in Wellington. Especially with a production about marginalised people from that area who, through music and friendship, are trying to make something of their existence. [more] |
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