Theatreview Weekly: 21/10/10

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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Basement Theatre, Auckland - TOUCH WOOD: Amusing shenanigans
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

In the deepest bush of a remote New Plymouth farm, dastardly esoteric plans are afoot.

The simple-ish and wholly unique plot resembles something of a quintessentially Kiwi, adult Badjelly the Witch, including the story-driving event of Bruce's prize cow going missing.

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Court One, Christchurch - GOD OF CARNAGE: Brutal comedy has audience in stitches
- reviewed by Alan Scott

You need some kind of armour to watch this production, for it is not called God of Carnage by accident.  About the only thing left standing at the end of the play was the set.

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BATS, Wellington - GENE POOL: Clone machine gives birth to magical man
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

There's a simplicity and limpid beauty in Gene Pool that has been rare or non-existent amongst the shows that have made up the STAB seasons of experimental theatre in the past few years.

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Regent Theatre, Dunedin - THE BUTLER: Dinner party evoked through dream-like logic, comedy, disturbances, visually rich mobile tableaux .
- reviewed by Jonathan W. Marshall

Since founding Loons Circus Theatre with some of the graduates in 2007, Friend and company have put in over 3 years of additional development on The Butler, as well as national and international touring. The result is an extremely fun - as well as quite erudite and abstract - piece which, while deeply rooted in New Circus and the work of the institutions ... has its own highly distinctive and engaging flavour

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Stark White Gallery, Auckland - SUPERFLUX: Audio visual assault
- reviewed by Nik Smythe

Four self-proclaimed 'improvisers' hailing from Grenoble, France, deliver a line-up of chaotic 'performances' - not performance in the on-stage sense I was expecting, rather the artists perform through their mediums - Gaëlle Rouard and Etienne Caire's 16mm projectors and their accompanying live sound-on-film duo 'Lafoxe'.

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BATS, Wellington - GENE POOL: The premise has promise
- reviewed by Hannah Smith

Gene Pool, the first of the two 2010 STAB shows, is a marvel of technical accomplishment. Set, lights, sound, and performance all achieve a degree of excellence that surpass the thin material of the story.

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Court One, Christchurch - GOD OF CARNAGE: Reason v unfettered emotions
- reviewed by Lindsay Clark

As always, the focus is sharp, throwing into relief the tiny hypocrisies and manipulations of language and perspective which allow civilised behaviour the moral high ground on the subject of violence, while the deeper truths about our motivation and actions are mostly kept under cover.

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Town Hall, Dunedin - KIRI TE KANAWA IN RECITAL: Enters the spirit of any song
- reviewed by Helen Watson White

The intimacy of the recital genre was remarkably retained even in this cavernous venue, the darkened auditorium focussing all our attention on the two artists - and a rather fine piano - on stage. Their rapport is obvious, a constant wordless communication passing between them ...

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Te Karanga Gallery, Auckland - HOTEL: Well worth a visit
- reviewed by John Smythe

Afflicted as he is with CPS*, it was perhaps inevitable that Thomas Sainsbury could not observe people in hotel foyers without imagining their stories and making playlets of them. And because his characters and the scenes they inhabit are so well crafted, it is not surprising that so many actors go down with CSNTS* ...

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Kings & Queens, Performing Arts Centre, Dunedin - TAONGA: DUST, WATER, WIND: It takes a team
to create magnificence
- reviewed by Helen Watson White

Taonga: Dust, Water, Wind is a fusion at once ecstatic and earthy of the music of traditional Maori instruments (taonga puoro) with contemporary Maori dance. The fifth work Louise Potiki Bryant has choreographed with Atamira in the last decade, it is based on the life of her grandfather's cousin ...

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Glenroy Auditorium, Dunedin - HôTEL: Mutual engagement and reciprocal energy
- reviewed by Jennifer Aitken

In Hôtel, Helen Medlyn and Penny Dodd, Medlyn's long-time collaborator and pianist, expose glimpses of dark deeds, decadence and desire within the deeply sparse and deadened hush of the hotel room.

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Basement Theatre, Auckland - THE SAD LAMENT OF PECOS BILL, ON THE EVE OF KILLING HIS WIFE:
Bold, colourful, inspiring
- reviewed by Caoilinn Hughes

The Dove Hunters bring something that is apparently dead - both the play and its cowboy hero - to roaring life in Auckland's Basement Theatre; pulling the cobwebs off an old cultural hero and wearing them as a headpiece.

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Isaac Theatre Royal, Christchurch - SWEENEY TODD - THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET: Quality horror
- reviewed by Tony Ryan

Among its many strengths, Showbiz Christchurch's production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd is worth seeing for Juliet Reynolds-Midgley's portrayal of Mrs Lovett alone. Midgley's ability to go beyond mere portrayal of the character and to actually inhabit the role is quite remarkable.

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Settlers Festival Theatre, Dunedin - HEAT: Provocative and moving
- reviewed by Sharon Matthews

Now is the winter of our artistic isolation, made glorious summer by this Otago Festival, as we finally experience those productions that we (I) have read about from afar! (sorry, William).

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Kings & Queens, Performing Arts Centre, Dunedin - PESO MEDIO: Palpable eroticism and admirable stamina
- reviewed by Alexandra Kolb

It has always proven a challenge to translate the tango, which as a popular dance of embrace was born in Buenos Aires and Montevideo between 1860 and 1890, into choreographic images showcased on stage. One of the tricky aspects is the need to convert a face-to-face positioning between the partners into more audience friendly formations ...

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Burns Hall, Dunedin - TE RADAR'S EATING THE DOG: History made exciting, hilarious and inspiring
- reviewed by Ben Blakely

Sometimes it seems that with such a small history, New Zealand doesn't have much to offer the historical record but Te Radar certainly proved this school of thought wrong. We need not look overseas for stars in history, we have our very own.

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The Garden Club, 13b Dixon Street, Wellington - CABARET: Sally's flight from life supports Life Flight
- reviewed by John Smythe

The intimacy of The Garden Club, with its bar up the back, suits the cabaret setting very well, avoiding the 'big stage musical' feel and harnessing, instead, the sense of a tawdry little dive in a Berlin side street as, in 1930, that city descends into the darkness brought by the rise of the Nazi Party.

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The Garden Club, 13b Dixon Street, Wellington - CABARET: Life is a cabaret even in small scale
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

Lindsay Rusling has wisely, considering the minute stage at The Garden Club, used many of the changes that Sam Mendes instituted in his 1993 production such as an Emcee who is the total opposite to Joel Grey's brilliantined, rose-bud lipped, reptilian entertainer...

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St Martin Hall, Nev., Dunedin - BACKWARDS IN HIGH HEELS: A genuine community event
- reviewed by Jennifer Aitken

The two tango dancers ... dance in the space and the actors mingle and talk; everybody is relaxed.
This is a professional production with all the quirks and fun of an amateur community production without the fear of imminent disaster.

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Circa One, Wellington - THE BIRTHDAY BOY: Friendship and jealousy
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

With The Birthday Boy we are taken on a 25 year journey travelling through the very familiar New Zealand theatrical landscape of middle-class comedy. It's a rambling comic trip passing through a number of birthdays and on the way we are confronted with the trials of friendship, parenthood, marriage, and the search for personal fulfillment.

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Downstage - return season, Wellington - DEADLY: Subtle portrayal of descent into sin
- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

... Luckily, Deborah Pope's approach to Pride, Wrath, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Avarice and Sloth is more subtle and more interesting. The sins are only deadly when they are taken to extremes ...