Theatreview Weekly: 25/08/11

A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including Macbeth, Chalk, Tilt, and Waiting for Godot.

See more recent reviews at theatreview, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory.

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Volcano Cafe site, 42 London Street, Lyttelton - MACBETH: Hacked script, hacking action, unique production

- reviewed by Elizabeth O’Connor

In the June 13 earthquake in Christchurch, The Loons theatre, which has seen an impressive variety of in-company and outside shows over the last few years, was damaged enough to be red-stickered ... Director Mike Friend and the company chose to continue, rehearse and perform the production on a ‘found’ space in Lyttelton ...

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BATS, Wellington - CHALK: Chalk one up to love

- reviewed by John Smythe

“I want my daughter to see this,” a young mother said on her way out. For all the joy Chalk offers those who love to watch versatile young actors create multiple roles with wit and skill, it is confronting the realities of an aging population that has the most profound effect. This play delivers on its purpose.

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The Civic – THE EDGE®, Auckland - SOAP THE SHOW: Impressive but could do with an edit

- reviewed by Kate Ward-Smythe

So much is timing. As I watch the rippling abs, foot juggling, an artist clamber up aerial silks, another ascend leather straps, then finally, a trapeze – each one twisting and tying themselves up before they plunge down on the dramatic musical cue – I have a sense of deja vu.

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Fortune Theatre, Dunedin - AVENUE Q: Potty-mouthed hilarity with immense charm

- reviewed by Terry MacTavish

At last, a New Zealand production of the hit musical that is a riotous, giggle-till-you-wet-your-knickers adult send-up of Sesame Street. All who grew up with Sesame Street’s sing-along tunes and easily absorbed life-lessons, innocently accepting furry monsters as one of the many races that make up New York, are sure to relish this cutely subversive parody.

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Fletcher Building Dome, Hagley Park, Christchurch - TILT: Tilt - no longer Terra Firma

- reviewed by Andrew Paul Wood

This is not a pretty dance - it's raw and uncompromising. Dancers collapse on their feet, fall down, and are inscribed with chalk, just as disasters and dramatic changes bring us down and leave their marks. The circling and repetition through which the dancers move suggest panic, uncertainty and entrapment perfectly expressed.

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Fletcher Building Dome, Hagley Park, Christchurch - TILT: A powerful evocation... of standing on shaky ground

- reviewed by Elizabeth O’Connor

I am sure Tilt was an experience unique to each person who saw it. It was, for me, a most satisfying piece of art. It explored and expressed vital things about the experiences I have shared with the rest of Canterbury, in a way which I believe would be accessible even to those who have never felt a quake.

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Globe Theatre, Dunedin - WAITING FOR GODOT: Dynamic and very funny

- reviewed by Terry MacTavish

For its 50th anniversary year the Globe has remounted one of its very first productions, a play since voted the most influential of the 20th century: the absurdist masterpiece, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. The determined producer, Irish like the playwright, was one Patric Carey, and this is what he had founded the Globe Theatre to do ...

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Basement Upstairs, Auckland - IDIOTS 3D: Mad caper of pithy, twisted humour

- reviewed by Sian Robertson

The third and finest to date in the idiot-themed series of gratifyingly wicked plays by Nic Sampson, IDIOTS 3D is set in a cinema complex, run by the anxious, snivelling Leonard (Andrew Ford) and staffed by a mixed bag of idiots.

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Old Boy’s Theatre, Christ’s College, Christchurch - HE REO AROHA: Aroha rules

- reviewed by Lindsay Clark

True festival fare, this is a simple tale, generously delivered with vital performances and superb musicality. It has been well applauded elsewhere, both within Aotearoa and abroad. Now it’s the turn of Christchurch audiences to experience this contemporary Maori love story – a perspective all too often missing from the local scene.

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BATS, Wellington - GLORIOUS: When comedy turns screwball

- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

Glorious is a strange hybrid. It’s a faux 1930s comedy of manners, a screwball comedy and a love letter to movie stars like Katherine Hepburn and James Stewart who appeared most famously in Philip Barry’s The Philadelphia Story. It is also the first attempt as far as I know at a screwball comedy by a New Zealand playwright.

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Betty’s Bar, Blair Street, Wellington - 6 LITTLE PLAYS 4 CHRISTCHURCH: Not a hard ask; a pleasure, in fact

- reviewed by John Smythe

A critic asked to review a show that’s been made to raise funds for a deserving cause is confronted with a moral dilemma: What if it’s awful /offensive /disgraceful /a waste of everyone’s time? Who am I hurting if I discourage people from going?

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Basement Theatre, Auckland - REASONS TO BE PRETTY: Characters well realised

- reviewed by Stephen Austin

Neil LaBute’s writing always puts me in mind of a younger fresher David Mamet, taking everyday conversations of urbane well-read blue-collar types and snatches of overheard everyday dialogue and imbuing them with huge significance and piquancy while keeping them as truly intimate as they might have been when first discovered.

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See more recent reviews at theatreview.org.nz, the NZ Performing Arts Review & Directory

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