Birds of Paradise 2010

TAPAC - The Auckland Performing Arts Centre, Auckland

08/12/2010 - 18/12/2010

Production Details

Be part of an evening’s entertainment you’ll never forget. The Auckland premiere of BIRDS OF PARADISE will be an opulent cabaret experience. A feathery feast of fantasy that is perfect for your group Christmas function or silly-season, fun night out! Morag Magnolia Brownlie weaves dance, singing, burlesque and quirky comedy into a most stupendous menagerie.

And presentingthe courtship rituals of some bizarre and ornately costumed feathery friends. This show is a witty comedy about love and sexual chemistry, exploring the lost art of wooing reflected in the plight of some endangered species and others that are quite prolific. Turn up wearing a birdy fascinator or feathery cravat and you may be in for a treat. Book early as last season was sold out.

“Woven together with a thread of vocal gold, this unusual show features an outstanding mix of live and recorded sound integrating a contemporary experimental use of voice with the recorded riches of SJD and others” – Theatreview

“A feast for the eyes. Brownlie shares an extraordinary vision both celebratory and profound” Bernadette Rae – NZ Herald on Morag’s work “The Passage”.

PARTY GROUPS – delicious platters by Garnet Station Café & Bar are available. Pre-order to save disappointment. For more information call 3603397 or email thecowgirl@xtra.co.nz with platter order in the subject line..

OPENS: Wednesday 08 December 2010

CLOSES: Saturday 18 December 2010

TIMES: Wed – Sun 8.00 pm

Cabaret Table seating – Tickets $55 until 01 Dec ($60 after 01 Dec) / Cabaret Table seating – Tickets $50 for groups of 6+ / Tiered row seating – Tickets $38

Click here to book or phone 09 845 0295 or www.birdsofparadise.co.nz

Bird dancers: Georgie Goater, Seonaid Lyons, Naressa Gamble, Mike Holland, Greydis Montero and Isbert Ramos, Charlene Tedorow, Tom Natoealofa, Tarje Parbruwe, Amo Ieriko

Singers/Actors: Caitlin Smith and Erika Strata (the Cuckoo), Henry Ah Foo Taripo, Daniel Batten, Morag Brownlie

Music selection: Morag Brownlie
Sound operator/live mix/backing recordings: Oliver Marco
Live vocals: Caitlin Smith, Erika Strata, Henry Ah Foo Taripo, Daniel Batten, Morag Brownlie, Seonaide Lyons, Mike Holland

2 hours plus 30 mins intermission

Review by Bernadette Rae 10th Dec 2010

Review by Raewyn Whyte 09th Dec 2010

Morag Magnolia Brownlie’s gorgeous looking, lavishly costumed, crackingly paced Birds of Paradise certainly provides an evening’s worth of entertainment. Taking the TAPAC studio theatre under its wings, the show transforms the normally flat performance floor into a cabaret with raised stage and central stairs surrounded by black-clothed tables, and a narrow walkway on the edge of raked seating which hampers movement in several cameo sections.. Pre-ordered platters are delivered to the tables, but everyone has to join the queue for beverages, which delayed the start on opening night.

Brownlie herself is in the guise of a somewhat ditsy Victorian birdwatcher/painter with a fascination for New Zealand’s native birds, especially the tui and the pukeko. She is fully clad for almost the entire proceedings, covered from head to toe in a slowly morphing array of circumspect layers of black (credited to Trelise Cooper) — silk, taffeta and tulle are folded, tattered and embellished with ribbons, lace and sequins, the outfit completed by a selection of hats, caps and fascinator style head-dresses (credited to Missy Milner Millinery), and a complementary pair of black ankle boots. She is generally accompanied by an outsized wooden easel, or stilts, or at times a hand-held microphone to supplement her throat mic. She murmurs, hums, sings quiet snatches of half-remembered songs, trills happily and occasionally bursts into ear-splitting riffs of vocalizations. She natters on about her fascination with birds, tossing out factoids and bon mots, ad libbing and delivering strangely inappropriate asides about the cast and audience.

Brownlie’s co-narrator (Daniel Batten) is a David Attenborough-esque naturalist in nostalgic mode, longing for what has been lost, full of facts about 2010 rates of species extinction, and an eloquent eulogiser about every bird species that crosses his path. Though he is clean cut and much slimmer than Attenborough, and his pith helmet and plain hot weather clothing looks like he is on safari in Africa, he has Attenborough’s authoritative tone and timing exactly right, and his good natured dead-pan-with-a-twinkle delivery makes him the perfect, charming host able to surmount any unexpected sequence of events in which he finds himself enmeshed..

The narrative circles around the mating activities of various NZ native birds and other exotic exemplars such as the Asian Buzzard, the male peacock, the nine-plumed New Guinean Bird of Paradise, and the Godwits which apparently turn red when mating. The entirely excellent cast of barely clothed core dancers – Georgie Goater, Seonaid Lyons, Naressa Gamble, Mike Holland, Greydis Montero and Isbert Ramos – maintain a cracking pace with their delightful impersonations of bird-like creatures drawing attention to themselves and pursuing (and indulging in) mating opportunities. A highlight of the show is the kotuku section, with one very traditional mating protocol (Seonaid Lyons and Greydis Montero), and another hot and hilariously post modern standout sequence (Georgie Goater and Mike Holland) . There’s lots of tail feather action in the red godwit section (Isbert Ramos and Greydis Montero), and precocious thwarting of other’s desires throughout from Naressa Gamble.

Musically, there’s a mix of original music from SJD, live singing and lip synching from the cast, and an astonishing array of pre-recorded tracks of multiple genres providing the background. Some cut out and feedback problems with the throat mics failed to dampen proceedings, and lip synching was generally more a sing along thing anyway. Featured singer Caitlin Smith was missing on opening night, and her songs were ably delivered with suitable mien by dancer Seonaid Lyons and singers Henry Ah Foo Taripo and Erika Strata. Taripo is a rock steady performer all through the show, and Strata (as The Cuckoo) makes impressive cameo appearances in a large bird cage structure which seems to be her realm. The Pasifika dance cameo by Charlene Tedorow and Tom Natoealofa was also particularly beautifully performed.

The show is a hybrid mix of burlesque (including stripping), musical and theatrical entertainment, comedy and a little edutainment. But there’s little question that the dancing is what holds the show together, and that Brownlie’s choreography is impeccably performed.

Purists are bound to grumble on one score or another, and certainly there are cameo sections which could be removed in order to tighten up the narrative, and a number of "good ideas" which could take their place in some other production. But if you can set that aside and enter into the spirit of the show, it’s a lot of fun, running at two hours plus a 30 minute intermission.

The continuity is broken after intermission when a number of really good prizes are awarded to qualifying members of the audience who have dressed in fascinators or taken inspiration from the "birds of paradise" themes, but after that it’s back to …. The Buzzard’s funeral scene. To say more would spoil the denouement.

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Birds of Paradise 2010

Mixed bag of birds need more room to move

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Sit back and enjoy the fun

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