Theatreview Weekly: 16/02/12

A selection of reviews from Theatreview from the last week including Music and Me, The Motor Camp, Love is a Street Fight, and Should We Stay or Should We Go?.

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

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Mangere Arts Centre, Auckland - MUSIC AND ME: Music, Me and Mayhem!

- reviewed by Sharu Delilkan

For Valentine’s Day evening, Victoria Schmidt’s brand new work Music and Me was an interesting choice, to say the least. Particularly since it was billed as telling the harsh realities of four individuals, struggling to survive in a forgotten world of prostitution, mental illness, substance abuse, depression ...

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Maidment, Auckland - THE MOTOR CAMP: Bringing back the cultural cringe

- reviewed by James Wenley

Like many kiwis, I joined the yearly summer exodus from the cities, and went camping over New Years. The miserable rain-drenched ‘summer’ of 2012 had little to write home about of course, but it did provide me with one memorable experience: the family holiday train-wreck. Not my own, thank goodness.

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Basement Studio, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - LOVE IS A STREET FIGHT: Unique views into love that was, until it wasn’t

- reviewed by Melisa Martin

Perfectly timed for Valentine’s Week, in the almost living-room sized Studio at The Basement, I was treated to a selection of short plays and 12 intimate performances based on the theme, and aptly titled Love Is A Street Fight.

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Circa Two, Wellington - MEETING KARPOVSKY: The power of silence on stage

- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

In a state of emotional distress of indecision and grief Sylvia talks to herself about her past, her love of dance, and her unhappy marriage. Nothing is explicit until she starts talking about her hero who suddenly and silently appears in the attic.

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BATS, Wellington - SHOULD WE STAY OR SHOULD WE GO?: Huge fun with a genuine purpose

- reviewed by John Smythe

The claim that theatre can change lives has often been dismissed as an idealistic dream but Should We Stay or Should We Go may well achieve just that, not for the audiences but for its creator/ actors. Their destiny is in our hands.

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Mangere Arts Centre, Auckland - MUSIC AND ME: Courageous play a thought-provoking masterpiece

- reviewed by Nick Bakulich

Victoria Schmidt’s Music and Me captures the inside lives of people society often tends to forget or chooses to neglect. Their lives, as played out by a talented cast, have been the result of family neglect or family dysfunction. The director, Asalemo Tofete, describes them as “a family forged, even in the darkest places” and sees them perfectly portrayed on stage.

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Court Theatre, Bernard Street, Addington, Christchurch - SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM: Sondheim dated but marvellous

- reviewed by Alan Scott

Side by Side with Sondheim is billed as a musical entertainment and there is no arguing with that. Under Richard Marrett's skilful musical direction, Ali Harper, Juliet Reynolds-Midgley and Michael Lee Porter treat us to two hours of amusing engaging and often compelling renditions of Stephen Sondheim's compositions.

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Old Library Art Centre, Whangarei - THE TEMPEST: Vivid, provocative and thoughtful

- reviewed by Mark Houlahan

This is a pocket Tempest, with six actors and skeleton crew. The action is trimmed back. The tedious court party is removed from the play, though the Italian clowns Stephano and Trinculo remain. Director Lilicherie McGregor has focused on the islanders: the settlers, Prospero and his daughter Miranda, and the ‘natives’ of the isle, Ariel and Caliban.

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BATS, Wellington - DARK STARS: Unrealised potential

- reviewed by John Smythe

On opening night at Bats, Council had not tuned into the pitch of the theatre. He projected so loudly – especially in the Sayles sequences – that, combined with his tendency to run words together, a lot of the text was rendered unintelligible. It may have been because of this that the juxtapositions of the 2 stories seemed clumsy and poorly structured.

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Maidment, Auckland - THE MOTOR CAMP: Campground comedy plays up class-cringe jokes

- reviewed by Janet McAllister

For the second year in a row, the Auckland Theatre Company - a national "arts leadership" organisation - has opened its annual season with a deliberately crass and bawdy farce. Jokes about bums (some funny, some not) mean bums on seats, and those looking for an evening's light, tasteless entertainment will find much to enjoy here ...

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Museum Hotel, Tamburini Room, Wellington - DANCING IN THE WAKE: THE STORY OF LUCIA JOYCE: Copland’s fluid dancing enhances absorbing story

- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

Lucia Joyce, daughter of James Joyce, was a talented dancer in her youth in the 1920s but as she attempted to forge her independence and artistic identity she found herself drowning in the wakes of her notorious father absorbed in his work and the shy Samuel Beckett, her father’s young friend and occasional assistant, with whom she fell in love.

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BATS, Wellington - THE ADVENTURES OF WENDY THE WONDERFUL...: Talented team explores an idea that could go deeper

- reviewed by Helen Sims

The Adventures of Wendy the Wonderful… focuses on the experiences, both real and imagined, of a girl named Wendy. It quickly becomes obvious that Wendy’s rich imaginative life, featuring a cohort of imaginary friends named Leslie, Winston and Mara, is the result of a paucity of affection from her parents. Their attentions are focused on Wendy’s severely disabled brother, also called Leslie.

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Theatre Royal, Nelson - HANUSSEN – THE PALACE OF BURLESQUE: An unforgettable night of theatre

- reviewed by Gail Tresidder

This production sparkles and fizzes. Neatly held together by the fascinating true story of showman extraordinaire, Erik Jan Hanussen, the brilliant ensemble acting, skilful circus acts and singing and dancing of the finest quality, make a performance unlike anything I have ever seen.

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Concert Chamber - Town Hall, THE EDGE, Auckland - SHORT + SWEET DANCE GALA FINAL: Short + Sweet dances please the crowd

- reviewed by Raewyn Whyte

Speculation was rife in the crowd waiting for the start of the Short + Sweet Dance Gala Final - after all, nobody out front knew who the finalists were. Everyone knew there would be some works from each of the three groups of 10 so far presented, but not how many. So the eventual roster held surprises, and some disappointment when particular works were missing. Awards were also not being announced til after the end of performances, so it was going to be a long evening.

Eventually we discovered there were four works from Group 1, Five from Group 2 and one from the Wild Card selection.

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Concert Chamber - Town Hall, THE EDGE, Auckland - SHORT + SWEET DANCE - WILDCARD GROUP: Wild Cards?

- reviewed by Raewyn Whyte

The "wild card" performers in Short and Sweet Dance Festival's third elimination programme (of three) are not so different from the works selected for Groups 1 and 2. They collectively present confident, polished performances, though choreographically, several of these works were not as successful in conveying their themes.

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Court Theatre, Bernard Street, Addington, Christchurch - SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM: Classy and ultimately uplifting

- reviewed by Lindsay Clark

Billed as a musical entertainment, this compilation of dramatically charged songs from the supreme master of musical theatre plays to a very different Christchurch and probably an even wearier world than the first time we experienced it at The Court a couple of decades ago. If anything, the wit seems even sharper, reflection more poignant, the music more engaging than before.

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Maidment, Auckland - THE MOTOR CAMP: You can’t argue with a theatre full of laughter

- reviewed by Adey Ramsel

A 2012 Kiwi ‘Carry On…’ movie for thinking grown ups, the play pits an academic couple complete with lovesick daughter in one caravan against working class Mike and Dawn and Dawn’s hormonal son Jared in another.

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Court Theatre, Bernard Street, Addington, Christchurch - SCARED SCRIPTLESS: In fine form amid unruly audience

- reviewed by Erin Harrington

I have been attending Scriptless since perhaps 1997 and the most arresting thing about the show for me was the way in which the relationship between the performers and the audience has shifted.

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Concert Chamber - Town Hall, THE EDGE, Auckland - SHORT + SWEET DANCE - GROUP 2: A kaleidoscopic arrangement

- reviewed by Rosemary Martin

Short + Sweet Dance bills itself as a ‘festival’ whilst simultaneously being a ‘competition’, with the winner of this Auckland series travelling to compete in the Short + Sweet Dance festivals in Melbourne and Sydney. Dance competitions have always made me nervous, whether I am performing or watching, and this was no exception. The fact that there was a ‘secret’ panel of judges lurking in the audience to judge the ‘best’ performances to go through to the Saturday night final added to my unease.

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Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland - DARK STARS: Earnest and endearing ride to cathartic epiphany

- reviewed by Nik Smythe

Council has enlisted the skills of young rising-star playwright Arthur Meek to form his very personal story which plays out in contrast to Sayles' clear cut fable of fame versus dignity, as a kind of Buddhist parable addressing the desire for material gain versus the freedom of detachment forced upon him by agonisingly ironic timing.

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Circa Two, Wellington - MEETING KARPOVSKY: Moving mastery

- reviewed by Maryanne Cathro

All we know is that Sylvia Morton is a ballet fan who knows all the steps but has two left feet. In her attic room filled with crates of her daughter’s unwanted stuff and blown up photocopies of her favourite dancer, Alexander Karpovsky, she is frittering her life away. Then one day ...

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BATS, Wellington - KITSCH IN SYNCH: Pure, uncomplicated and dazzling entertainment

- reviewed by Maryanne Cathro

Lip-synching to artists as fabulous and diverse as Joan Rivers, Liza Minnelli and Joyce Grenfell, Polly portrays a tale of the unravelling of the post war housewife from Doris Day to Desperate.

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Museum Hotel, Tamburini Room, Wellington - DANCING IN THE WAKE: THE STORY OF LUCIA JOYCE: Harrowing and comic insights into unhappiness

- reviewed by Caoilinn Hughes

Reading about the life of aspiring Irish dancer Lucia Joyce – daughter of globally renowned writer James Joyce – Jan Bolwell was compelled to write a play about her tragic and divisive life, which “weaves the two art forms [dance and theatre] together to make a seamless whole,” according to her playwright’s note. Whether or not a ‘seamless whole’ is created within the playtext, the trio cast of this production is seamlessly convincing and wholly compelling.

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Museum Hotel, Tamburini Room, Wellington - DANCING IN THE WAKE: THE STORY OF LUCIA JOYCE: ReJoyce - Insightful and very well played

- reviewed by Claire O'Neil

The interplay of the characters in Lucia’s life reveal the complex nature of being a daughter of an obsessed writer who derived inspiration from her wayward behaviour, while it seems her every pore wants to be just as important as his work and treated more like a daughter than a muse.

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BATS, Wellington - CRIMS: Tension with possibility

- reviewed by Lynn Freeman

Thomas Sainsbury is one of the hardest working theatre practitioners in the country. I’ve lost count how many plays he’s written on top of writing TV’s Super City.

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BATS, Wellington - YOU BE THE ANGEL I BE THE GHOST: A writer in search of a play

- reviewed by John Smythe

Because it’s a dream it has every right to eschew any semblance of sense, logic, coherence or dramatic structure that leads to an outcome informed by all that has gone before. Fair enough. But that means our interest in the random ‘content’ soon palls ...

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Te Whaea, Wellington - TOM KEEPER PASSES: Dazzling melange funny, haunting

- reviewed by Laurie Atkinson

A melange of sharply defined scenes depicting everything from a beggar on the streets to a disillusioned rebel to a group of do-gooders looking for answers in personal feel-good mantras, to everyone looking for a saviour, to a person committing suicide, and someone who believes that technology will be the answer.

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

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