Shows

Everybody fails, sometimes spectacularly. Few write a fearless book about it, but this is exactly what feminist writer Chris Kraus did after her experimental feature film epically flopped at a Berlin film market in 1998. Based on her book Aliens & Anorexia, this bold and innovative stage show seeks to answer the question: how did it all go so wrong?

Co-playwright Karin McCracken takes the lead role of Kraus and is supported by an ensemble cast of four (Nī Dekkers-Reihana, Simon Leary, Rongopai Tickell, and Sam Snedden) who expertly fill all the other roles in her strange life. McCracken is natural and engaging as someone who eventually realises that having no visual imagination is a bad foundation for becoming a filmmaker.

As much cinema as theatre, this stage show uses four cameras positioned beside, above, and on the stage to live-project the actors onto a large screen behind the acting area. Objects (including a gross-looking bowl of cold Campbell’s minestrone soup) also appear, set up on a lightbox at the edge of the stage. The technical work to mix this varying vision with recorded footage, sometimes matching it frame for frame, is astounding. Video designer Owen Iosefa McCarthy, video programmer Rachel Neser (Artificial Imagination), and show operator Natasha Thyne deserve special recognition. Also working seamlessly with the technology is a subtly effective lighting design (Rob Larsen) that lets the actors be seen but never gets in the way of the projections and atmospheric soundscape (Emi 恵美 Pogoni).

Another clever touch in the staging (performance designer Meg Rollandi) is a cut-out section of the screen that has a gauzy covering behind which the actors appear as characters, such as the British film producer Kraus has a long-distance sadomasochistic phone-sex relationship with, who Kraus never meets.

The many awesome technical ideas make the show run a little long at two-and-a-half hours, but this is my only critique of an otherwise fascinating and creatively delivered production.

The Man Whose Mother Was a Pirate: The Musical sets sail off the pages of Margaret Mahy’s treasured children’s picture book of the same name. The story follows Sam (Taipuhi King) as he finally breaks free from his job as an accountant to join his pirate mother (Hilary Norris) on the high seas.

Drawing from the Mahy classic, master composer and lyricist Nino Raphael has created catchy tunes with words that roll off the tongues of the performers. The sea shanties and patter songs are superb, with a highlight being Sam’s ditty about auditing his mother’s books. I would love there to be a wider variety of songs, as I feel this would enhance the musical even more.

Raphael is fantastic on concertina, guitar, and piano. Who needs a philharmonic orchestra when you have a one-man band providing sensational accompaniment and support? He is fantastic at leading both the cast and the audience. We essentially become the ensemble, filling the quaint venue of The Welsh Dragon Bar with lively, rowdy joy. I hope that in future renditions of this show, audience interaction remains a focal point.

All the performers have stunning vocals and a strong grasp of the music despite having a short rehearsal period. They embody their roles – inspired by the original story – with distinct, hilarious characterisations. I understand the musical is intended to be longer and am very curious to see how the characters would grow and develop when given more time on stage, especially Mr Fat (Adam Herbert).

Whilst this is their (sold out!) development season, I am extremely impressed. I can see this upbeat, energetic show becoming incredibly popular. I am very privileged to have caught the first-ever performance, as well as The Welsh Dragon Bar’s Fringe Festival debut. I hope that The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate: The Musical continues to catch the wind in its sails and travels far.

The writer’s note in the programme sets up the premise for JIMMY, a New Zealand Fringe Festival show, as “our friend Cole Hampton. It’s the story of Jimmy, a character Cole was playing in a script I wrote for him and Ari Leason. We were rehearsing it at the time of his death. We could never do that play. So we wrote JIMMY.” It’s a poignant and tender beginning for a heartfelt love-letter-cum-eulogy to a lost companion.

Five souls are alone in their own worlds: Jack (Jared Lee) is burrowing down an internet rabbit hole on the nature of the universe; Lou (Ari Leason) is creatively stuck by mourning; Orla (Olivia Marshall) is rehearsing for opening night of a Greek tragedy; Puāwai (Parekawa Finlay) is recalling Māori legends in the constellations; and James (Jono Weston) is remembering summer with his childhood friend. These disparate threads weave together over the course of an hour as these friends and relations of Jimmy’s come together to farewell him. It’s a simply effective and highly relatable narrative structure that is reflected daily in funeral rites the world over as people from each branch of an individual’s life join in remembrance. We learn about Jimmy – his daring, humorous, creative nature – through the recollections of these five.

The vignettes of memory, loss, and grief are interspersed with songs, the real strength of this production. Each cast member has written and performs at least one song and they come together to perform two by Cole Hampton himself, the entertaining Weirdo and the uplifting Good, which they deliver as an impromptu wake for Jimmy. The cast are endearing and clearly demonstrate the varying trauma of grief without going overboard. Leason is particularly strong with her beautiful voice and guitar-playing.

The underscoring theme of space and time reflects the ultimate message of JIMMY: even if you die, you still exist through other people. And that’s something we all should wish for upon a star.

Following their critically acclaimed production Wild Dogs Under My Skirt at the 2018 Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts, the FCC creative team is back this festival, bringing to ferocious life Tusiata Avia’s Ockham Poetry Award-winning The Savage Coloniser Book.

Far from being a simple poetry reading, this is a blisteringly provocative theatrical presentation by six Pasifika actors who speak, sing, and move their way through Avia’s confronting texts. She is totally unafraid to cast an unforgiving and provocative eye over race and racism, coloniser and colonised. The poems cross-examine the cringe-making things white people say, Gauguin’s sexualised utopian vision of Tahiti, white criticism of intergenerational trauma as an ‘excuse’ for bad behaviour, the stereotyping of South Aucklanders, a health sector that uses BMI as a weapon against Brown people, and much more. Woe betide you if you’re a National or ACT voter; Christopher Luxon and Judith Collins don’t come off well at all. That’s not to say the show isn’t funny. It’s achingly so and at many times causes a ripple of laughter and applause through the audience, as well as the odd whoop of righteous agreement.

The exceptional cast of Stacey Leilua, Joanna Mika-Toloa, Mario Faumui, Petmal Petelo, Ilaisaane Green, and Katalaina Polata’ivao-Saute totally own the stage. They are a strong, slick, and superbly coordinated team (choreography by Tupua Tigafua and Mario Faumui) with just six chairs, six machetes, and a mirror as props. They are aided by a superb set and a lighting design (production designers Bradley Gledhill and Rachel Marlow) that cleverly employs projections onto a sheer screen in front of the actors and smoke and lights behind them to emphasise the poetry, along with haunting music composed by David Long.

The Savage Coloniser Show is savage both in its content and its execution, while also being a creation of theatrical artistry. Leaving much to think about and examine in your own behaviour, it is a bold and necessary understanding of the history of Aotearoa.

Imagine the kind of tingly, eerie warmth that would course through your veins if you were listening to a Brothers Grimm fairytale by a roaring fire with a glass of whisky in hand. Now imagine the person telling you that story is building a whole world around you, enhancing every beat with shadowplay and spooky soundscapes, projections and puppetry.

That’s the closest I can come to describing a Trick of the Light Theatre show. Few words are capable of capturing the magic this innovative theatre company brings to the stage. Every time.

The latest entry in the canon, The Suitcase Show follows a traveller (Ralph McCubbin Howell) who’s been flagged by security (Hannah Smith) for possessing a number of suspicious items at the airport. In some dingy backroom, the traveller unveils the contents of each suitcase one by one, sharing the stories contained within to an automaton officer who just wants to know if those matches are flammable, actually.

While seemingly unconnected at first, the stories are woven together by a thematic thread that I won’t uncoil here. Each one is told with trademark Trick of the Light flair and effects that are special in all senses of the word. A moving trainset appears out of thin air; a rickety overhead projector unfolds to the beat of a retro space theme (sound design and composition by Tane Upjohn Beatson); a miniature town materialises, lit from within as if by magic; a love story for the ages plays out with nought but four LED lights and two hands (McCubbin Howell in a show highlight). It all climaxes in a hilarious scene featuring videographic wizardry (Dean Hewison) and two end-of-line officers (Anya-Tate Manning, Richard Falkner) tasked with screening the contents of the traveller’s last case. Prohibited items doesn’t begin to cut it.

Trick of the Light Theatre are self-professed notorious tinkerers. As someone who had the privilege of seeing The Suitcase Show twice, the only critiques I would have made had already been addressed by the second show. The only feedback I’ve got left now? Amazing.   

Where you see one woman, you see a thousand, Witi’s Wāhine proclaims with the force of a raging storm, a standing army, an entire tangata past, present, and future echoing their voice. Woven together with the pages of Witi Ihimaera’s stories and golden threads of waiata, this Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts production is a tapestry of wāhine, whenua, and Māori wisdom.

Sitting downstage left, the chair with the crocheted blanket is the lone set piece for now, but it is not alone. Before actors even arrive, before guests take their seats, before the curtain rises, the chair sits occupied by memories of the past and impressions of the future, waiting in anticipation for the present to unfold. Once the performers join, there is silence. Roimata Fox, Awhina-Rose Henare Ashby, Kristyl Neho, and Olivia Violet Robinson-Falconer, with soft smiles on their lips, slowly pan the room, returning the gaze of each and every eye peering up at them. For a few minutes, we are nowhere but in the present.

For the next 120 minutes, we find ourselves somewhere in the in-between. Time and space crack and bend, ebb and flow as the cast, characters, and stories pass through the doors of the set walls (Penny Fit), portals to other realms less tangible than ours. The performers bring the set to life as they dance and fight, shuffle and take flight with unparalleled skill highlighted by brilliantly executed technical effects. The cast of eight are one but they are distinct, each playing a myriad of richly developed characters utterly singular yet somehow joined through their struggles, joys, and whakapapa.

Across the multi-coloured fabric of generations, storms rage, sunlight shines bright, blood drenches through William Smith’s evocative lighting design and Tyna Keelan’s immersive soundscape. Gossamer threads of pain and sorrow, wisdom and instinct stretch across history, twisting our heartstrings into a knot. But when the threads of time unwind, when the worlds of fiction and reality, legend and history uncoil, what remain are flax ribbons of laughter, joy, and love.

Part of this year’s New Zealand Fringe Festival, this play imagines a younger version of Queen Elizabeth II (Aimée Sullivan) walking into a quiet Wellington bookshop, a year after the real monarch’s death. Conversing with the bookstore clerk (Tara Canton), she slowly pieces together what might have brought her here, grappling with questions about her legacy – both as an individual and as the physical embodiment of the Crown.

Canton and Sullivan perform the two parts in the play expertly. To begin with, the environment and circumstances are unclear, but as The Keeper, Canton is effortlessly relaxed. She enters, complacently eating an apple, and writes in a journal throughout the show. Her dialogue is always natural and free. Sullivan, to contrast, uncannily captures the regal voice and mannerisms of the Queen, prim and controlled even in this strange environment. The costumes (decided by the actors themselves) also work well to differentiate the characters’ personalities, with The Keeper wearing a baggy shirt and pants with Crocs, while the young Queen is in a floral dress and pearls.

The audience is arranged in a circle, a desk at one side of the space and a comfy armchair at the other, with piles of books filling the stage in between (set design by producer, writer, and director James Ladanyi). Other books are hung by string from the ceiling, evoking a sense of wonder that supports the surreal story. Both performers use the space well, always showing us both sides of the story and projecting their voices across the stage as their discussion becomes more heated. This makes the back-and-forth almost like a tennis match.

At first, I question the need for a 10-minute interval in a 60-minute show, but it makes sense as the Queen is left on the stage by herself, reading and reflecting, giving more pace and impetus for conflict in the second act.

The Eleventh Trip of Lilibet W. is an ultimately hopeful play. It is a vivid examination of a woman we all knew about, bringing a modern, analytical perspective and inviting us to consider our own stories and legacies.

The opportunity to see a performance from the creative team at A Slightly Isolated Dog is always something to look forward to and they’ve outdone themselves with Our Own Little Mess. Champions of innovation and audience collaboration, they’ve taken their mission to another level with this immersive exploration of the inner voices that drive us.

Five ordinary Kiwis are on personal journeys. An academic (Maaka Pohatu) isolates himself after being rejected for a promotion; a young woman (Louise Jiang) goes on a desperate trip to Europe, lost in grief for her mum’s death; a ventriloquist (Jack Buchanan) has an existential crisis in the desert; a stressed mum (Laurel Devenie) tells stories to her young daughter and misses her husband who’s overseas; and a gay man (Andrew Paterson) imagines his life as a series of art installations while he navigates the dating scene in New York.

As the audience, we hear through headphones the thoughts and anxieties that propel these people on their sometimes-surreal journeys to their own resolutions. This device enables us to hear the voices, both internal and external, that inform their view of the world and how they respond to it. Far from being merely a creative whim, this approach is underpinned by research evidence and the credits boast cognitive neuroscientists (Drs David Carmel and Gina Grimshaw). Audience members are invited to complete an online survey after the show, the responses to which will be part of a full academic study on inner speech.

The uber theatre production design (Meg Rollandi) features clever set pieces that are utilised over and over in new ways, while the lighting design (Leo Gene Peters) sees largely handheld lighting from lamps and torches accentuated by a few stage lights. The two work together to support the narratives. Voices are supplemented by effective and well-balanced music and sound effects (Sam Clavis).

Our Own Little Mess is a spellbinding examination of our inner worlds for this Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts.

Jungle Book reimagined is based on Rudyard Kipling’s beloved The Jungle Book but with a dystopian twist. Ravaged by climate change, Mowgli is separated from her family and arrives alone in a deserted city where animals run the streets. In this strange world, Mowgli discovers unlikely allies and learns the importance of listening to nature.

The dancers (Maya Balam Meyong, Tom Davis-Dunn, Hector Ferrer, Harry Theadora Foster, Filippo Franzese, Bianca Mikahil, Max Revell, Matthew Sandiford, Elpida Skourou, Holly Vallis, Jan Mikaela Villanueva, and Lani Yamanaka) are flexible and full of energy, each embodying a different animal through movement that emphasises and adds layers of meaning to the dialogue spoken. All members of the ensemble stand out in their own right yet work together to become one collective master of storytelling.

From a scenography perspective, the video design (directed by Nick Hillel of YeastCulture) is astonishing and I love the use of two gauzes to screen the vivid animations (rotoscope artists and animators Naaman Azhari, Natasza Cetner, and Edson R Bazzarin, director of animation Adam Smith of YeastCulture). This adds more depth to them as it immerses the performers between two panels of moving picture, creating a satisfying blur between real life and make-believe.

The sound design (Gareth Fry) creates a wonderful soundscape that truly transports us into director and choreographer Akram Khan’s dystopian future. The compositions (Jocelyn Pook) highlight key emotional beats in what is a sensational soundtrack to this captivating performance. The script (Tariq Jordan) is poetic and succinct. This multimedia show has it all.

Every element works together so cohesively to create a mesmerising, thought-provoking piece about our need to work with nature; to belong and to bond with others. We must be one with nature. This show is a warning of a world that could be if we are not.

I sincerely hope that Akram Khan Company brings more state-of-the-art theatre to New Zealand. This is one of the best productions I have seen. Make your journey through the urban jungle and watch Jungle Book reimagined!

About five minutes into Celebrity Trevor Island, I whisper to my friend, “I get to write about this for a living”. I am, of course, grinning. Four improv performers – Em Barrett, Salome Bhanu, Dylan Hutton, and Eliza Sanders – are midway through strapping squeaky chicken toys to their feet with heavy-duty duct tape. Moments later, the clucky cacophony commences...

And they’re off! They dart, they dive, they dash around the chicken coop, dodging a dastardly, dangerous sheep! But it’s not a sheep, it’s a mute farmhand named Shithead (Anna Barker) in disguise! And she’s armed with a swimming noodle! Only at Fringe.

In Celebrity Trevor Island, created by Jeremy Hunt with second project lead Austin Harrison, Trevor (Hunt) is seeking a replacement for his less-than-satisfactory farmhand. Four candidates – collected from other New Zealand Fringe Festival shows – have shown up for an interview that turns out to be an unpaid job trial (classic). Onsite, they must complete a series of tasks, each more unhinged than the last. I don’t want to spoil too much, but there’s the pie-decorating contest, the cow-insemination challenge (the steaks are high for this one), and the Trev-ia round, which gives rise to some of the best lines of the night.

To Trev’s question, “What’s your favourite thing about Trevor”, Sanders responds, “You’ve got a tolerable aura”. She also accidentally impersonates a horse (classic). When asked “L&P or the A&P”, Hutton frantically bellows, “L&P at the A&P”, scoring (Mitre 10) mega points and laughs in the process.

Musician Ben Kelly tinkles on the keys to add to the atmosphere, but only sporadically and I want more. Bouncier music would also help to drive the action forward, as Celebrity Trevor Island does flounder round the mid-section. It’s a little Ruff around the edges, sure – but its Gutz are pure chaos and carnage and I’m not even sure I want to see a more polished version. With its unique format, electric host, and guest performers who go the whole hog, this hysterical show epitomises the spirit of the Fringe.

Making It Up (One Playwright to Another) is an award-winning dramatisation of playwright and actor Norm Reynolds’ life as he makes his way through appointments with destiny in the realms of academia, finance, and theatre.

The work is shot entirely at the Red Sandcastle Theatre in Toronto, yet it is a piece of digital theatre. Filming onstage establishes Making It Up (One Playwright to Another) as a play, even bearing in mind its online format. I respect and appreciate the foreword at the start of the piece recognising the Indigenous people’s land on which the play was filmed. I feel more art should do this.

Making It Up (One Playwright to Another) features conversations between Reynolds and renowned American playwright Edward Albee, with Reynolds playing both himself and Albee. This is a neat concept, but at times I struggle to differentiate between the characters presented. This could be remedied through more distinct characterisation. However, through these conversations, the work opens up a dialogue about the inner workings of script creation, exploring an element of theatre often left unseen. A highlight for me is the monologue towards the end, written and presented by Reynolds as Albee, about grading papers. A mundane task, sure – but Reynolds performs it so well that it becomes one of the most interesting and memorable monologues of the show.

The piece makes good use of its digital format, incorporating aspects of sound and cinematography (John Bertram) to enhance the performance in a way that would’ve been less effective in a live theatre setting. I find some of the cinematic transitions between scenes to be distracting at times, although I am not sure whether this effect is intentional.

I never expected to watch theatre intended for a digital audience, but after this experience, I realise there should be more art available in this medium. From one reviewer to another viewer, I would recommend giving Making It Up (One Playwright to Another) a go.

Again and again, Nathan wakes up on the heath just beyond his hometown in County Meath, Ireland. When the ball of light came racing towards him on that fateful October night, the year was 1959, but with each new dawn for Nathan, a year and a day has passed for the rest of the world. Leaving behind a botched heist, a vengeful criminal gang, his best friend Sam, his struggling parents, and Elsie, the love of his life, Nathan must spend his time managing the chaos caused by this inexplicable curse.

A Year and a Day takes on the cadence, rhythms, and teachings of folklore as it subtly warns the audience to live not in the past or the future but in the here and now. Recounted completely in rhyme by Christopher Sainton-Clark alone on stage, the story is engaging and paced as if to keep up with Nathan’s temporal leaps. Accompanied by an intentional and essential lighting design from Daisy den Engelse to indicate time and place, Sainton-Clark plays each character distinctly, moulding his body, voice, and mannerisms into a disappointed father, a scorned friend, a heartbroken lover, and a lost time traveller. He has no props to use, only the clothes upon his back, his body, and his emotions, yet pure magic flows forth from this immensely talented shapeshifter.

A Year and a Day spans 65 years – or just two months in Nathan’s timeline. A poignant, tender, and darkly comedic story, this New Zealand Fringe Festival show explores the intricacies of love and loss ravaged by time. As Sainton-Clark skips through days, months, and years, he paints an evocative and painfully beautiful portrait of the time traveller, focusing not on the excitement of what is to come but on the nostalgia of an unlived past and the torment of what could have been. The result is a man clutching in vain at the sands of time slipping unrelenting through his fingers.