The Magic of Her Body: Readings of Katherine Mansfield’s Queer Writing
Katherine Mansfield House and Garden, 25 Tinakori Rd, Thorndon, Wellington
26/03/2025 - 29/03/2025
Production Details
Creators: Kerryn Pollock and Vixen Temple
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, Katherine Mansfield House & Garden, and Vixen Temple Productions
‘She enthrals me, enslaves me – and her personal self – her body absolute – is my worship.’
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, Katherine Mansfield House & Garden, and Vixen Temple present ‘The Magic of Her Body: Readings of Katherine Mansfield’s Queer Writing’, an immersive theatrical experience in one of Aotearoa’s leading historic house museums as part of the 2025 Wellington Pride Festival.
Join performance artist Vixen Temple and historian Kerryn Pollock of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga on a journey through Mansfield’s sensual diary entries and sapphic-coded short stories, moving through the rooms in the home of her birth, Katherine Mansfield House & Garden in Thorndon.
Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) is one of Aotearoa’s most internationally acclaimed writers. Born in Wellington, she lived permanently in England and Europe from 1908 until her untimely death from tuberculosis in 1923. She became a central figure in literary modernism alongside contemporaries such as Virginia Woolf and DH Lawrence. In the words of biographer Gill Boddy, ‘She sought to capture the transitory vividness of life and to bring ordinary moments and people into focus so that their full significance could be understood’. Her passionate diary entries, beginning when she was a teenager, reveal a sapphic sensibility and identity that carried over into her fiction. Mansfield is a messy, relatable teen, a literary diva, and queer icon whose voice speaks to us beyond time.
Katherine Mansfield House & Garden, 25 Tinakori Road, Thorndon, Wellington
26-29 March, 2025
6pm and 8pm
$20/$35
www.katherinemansfield.com
Vixen Temple (creator and performer)
Kerryn Pollock (creator and performer)
Ms Weeds (musician)
Cherie Jacobson (producer)
Theatre , Music ,
45 minutes
Draws laughter, gasps and breathless silence at all the right moments
Review by Fox Swindells 27th Mar 2025
The Magic of Her Body: Readings of Katherine Mansfield’s Queer Writing unfolds in the perfect setting—the historic Katherine Mansfield House & Garden, a place I’d never visited before but now adore. My evening begins with a stroll through the garden, arm-in-arm with my girlfriend (an ideal companion for a night steeped in sapphic history).
We are warmly welcomed by Cherie Jacobson, Director of Katherine Mansfield House & Garden, and treated to live music from Ms Weeds—a fitting soundtrack for the evening.
Kerryn Pollock serves as our historic guide through Mansfield’s world, weaving stories of Mansfield’s history together as we move through the house.
The true star of the night is Vixen Temple, who embodies Katherine Mansfield with mesmerizing precision. Through her readings, Mansfield comes alive—defiant as a teenager, sensual as a woman, and always utterly captivating.
The evening’s structure flows beautifully: a mix of Mansfield’s writings, historical insights, and Temple’s magnetic performance. She holds the audience in the palm of her hand—drawing laughter, gasps and breathless silence at all the right moments.
As a lover of literature and sapphic storytelling, I’m almost embarrassed to admit I’d never read Mansfield before tonight. But now? I’m excited to dive into her work. The performance hooked me completely, leaving me hungry for more.
The historic venue, while intimate, did present some challenges as we moved between spaces—but the hosts handled it with grace and foresight. A minor unavoidable quibble in an otherwise flawless evening.
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
Comments