Theatreview Weekly: 18/11/10

The following reviews have been added to theatreview.org.nz in the last week.

Theatreview is the New Zealand Performing Arts Review & Directory.

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St Patrick's College Theatre, Kilbirne, Wellington - THE RAGGED: True community theatre
- reviewed by John Smythe

Helen Pearse-Otene adds another impressive play to Te Rakau's 'theatre marae' repertoire, with Jim Moriarty at the directorial helm. Again they reach back into history to put our shared past into perspective while providing their rangatahi* with "an opportunity to develop their self-discipline, self-awareness, self-respect, self-confidence and to work cooperatively with others," in the process of bringing this work to life.

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St Patrick's College Theatre, Kilbirne, Wellington - THE RAGGED: From contact to conflict
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

Historical plays about real events are often simplistic or burdened with bias. The playwright always has too much background information to get across to an audience in a short time and it's all too easy to pander to an audience's collective beliefs and myths.

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Mangere Arts Centre, Auckland - WHERE WE ONCE BELONGED: By turns moving, hysterical and thought provoking
- reviewed by Victor Rodger

Toi Whakaari and Unitec: you are on notice. I have seen the future of drama schools. It is fresh. It is brown. It is glorious.

I'm talking about the Pacific Institute of Performing Arts (P.I.P.A) diploma graduation production of Where We Once Belonged at the Mangere Arts Centre.

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Fortune Theatre, Dunedin - RED RIDING HOOD: Bawdy brilliance with extra prunes
- reviewed by Sharon Matthews

Well it's not Uncle Vanya, but I loved it! Director David Lawrence's trademark is, I quote, "existential angst-ridden soul-searching" theatre. However, in his director's notes he pre-empts any concerns that might be felt about his suitability for pantomime by passionately defending the role of accessible, escapist theatre to excite the imagination and comment in a seemingly apolitical manner on the problems of the world.

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Circa One, Wellington - ROGER HALL'S ROBIN HOOD: THE PANTOMIME: Robin Hood rides right through Zealandia
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

It's panto time again so you won't be surprised to hear that the glen that Robin Hood rides through is in Zealandia, while his domestic goddess of a mum is a seamstress who plays with her bobbins in nearby Wellywood.

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70 Cable St (opp. Te Papa), Wellington - EVERYTHING IS OK: Bleak picture of life reduced to lonely ritualism
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

The second STAB production for 2010 was started with Robert Appierdo's desire to work with shipping containers as a cross section of a block of flats but, as is the way of these things, it evolved into a sort of tone poem of contemporary life and where it all might be heading.

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Circa One, Wellington - ROGER HALL'S ROBIN HOOD: THE PANTOMIME: Hits the target
- reviewed by John Smythe

What with different 'Hood' pantos opening in two different 'hoods (Wellington and Dunedin) and publication of his epic family saga A Way of Life being officially launched (by Playmarket); Saturday 13 November was 'a good day at the office' for Roger Hall.

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Civic Theatre, Invercargill - THE NUTCRACKER: The Nutcracker - great to watch
- reviewed by Kasey Dewar

"The Nutcracker" itself has been around for 100 years but the version presented by the Royal New Zealand Ballet is a twist on the original story. It was created by Artistic Director Gary Harris and Choreographer Adrian Burnett a few years ago and centres around a children's hospital ward on Christmas Eve.

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TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland - THE IDEA OF AMERICA: Dysfunctional family compete for misery title
- reviewed by Janet McAllister

Sam Shore writes a good argument - several, in fact - in this lively drama about family dysfunction. He has an ear for middle-class crossfire: an unhappy couple exchange stilted phrases and accusations; a teenager sarkily throws articulate insults at her older siblings who are waaay uncool.

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15 Courtenay Place, Wellington - ECOLOGY IN FIFTHS: Growth, destruction, immobility, struggle ... and a glimmer of hope?
- reviewed by Jenny Stevenson

In his thoughtful depiction, through dance and installation, of the rape of the land in early colonial New Zealand, Playground director Sam Trubridge hits a raw nerve by exposing the ineffectual and damaging attempts by the human race to tame the terrestrial ecosystem and its more recent efforts to restore balance to the planet

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Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, The Edge, Auckland - PASSAGE: Inside women's fantasies, handbags, stories, spiritualities, traumas, regrets and fears
- reviewed by Caoilinn Hughes

It is not often you see new writing that is so polished in its presentation and so deliberate in its vision. Passage tells the story of four women who have left their homes and land, in order to escape from brutal realities of loss and violence. A young woman steers her father's boat away from her abusive past in the depths of a boundless, nameless sea, until two older women clamber aboard; fighting for their right to stay on board.

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Circa One, Wellington - ME AND ROBERT MCKEE: Telling lies for money
- reviewed by Michael Wray

The Me in Me and Robert McKee is Billy Dolan. Embittered by the loss of his wife to another man, Billy is now cohabiting with his old friend Mac. It's an odd couple scenario; the two have little in common. Billy is a writer, expressive, giving free rein to his feelings. Mac is a banker, in control and emotionally repressed.

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Civic Theatre, Auckland - THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW: Iconic show triumphant blast of nostalgia
- reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton

Ambling onstage as the show's narrator, Rocky Horror creator Richard O'Brien was greeted with a spontaneous eruption of applause. He acknowledged the welcome with a typically Kiwi piece of self-effacement - casually announcing that "the little bodgie bastard is back".

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TAPAC Theatre, Western Springs, Auckland - THE IDEA OF AMERICA: Thematically depressing yet in equal parts uplifting
- reviewed by Karyn Cushen

After sold-out performances earlier this year, The Idea of America has returned for a strictly limited season to once again rouse audiences with its characters' delusions of grandeur, belts of sibling petulance and the sobriety of alcohol-fuelled dementia.

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Unitec Theatre, Mt Albert, Auckland - PENTECOST: Physically, emotionally, intellectually demanding
- reviewed by Caoilinn Hughes

UNITEC's Year 3 acting students bravely take on the arduous task of staging British playwright David Edgar's play about politics, puns and paintings. Pentecost is an epic play on many levels: its three hour duration; its frenzied 20 characters on stage in their fragmented ethnic representations and cultural identities; and its heavy-handed social commentary.