SCENE BY JAMES: 2023 – A Theatrical Yr in Evaluate [Part 2: The Shows]

This 12 months’s commentary is break up into two elements. CLICK HERE for 2023 – A Theatrical Yr in Evaluate [Part 1 – The Issues].

Theatre Scenes’ latest annual Yr in Opinions have focussed on massive sector points, broadening our focus past the theatre carried out on our phases. However it’s at all times a aid to show the eye again to the reveals, and revisit what our crew of reviewers product of them. 

So, let’s get again to enterprise.

Effectively, not fairly but. Silo Theatre made the massive name that “2023 = cancelled”, which means we missed out on Silo’s standard agenda-setting productions this 12 months. The corporate as a substitute developed work internally, sneaking in a dwell dwell cinema manufacturing of Night time of the Dwelling Useless as their one and solely public present of the 12 months. Erin O’Flaherty discovered it to be “a enjoyable and revolutionary idea that unites the mediums of cinema and theatre; it playfully exists in each and neither. It is stuffed with scrumptious contradictions – just like the zombies themselves, caught between life and loss of life.”

One other manufacturing enjoying between these artforms was The Image of Dorian Grey, direct from Sydney Theatre Firm and offered by Auckland Arts Competition. Whereas the manufacturing had many within the arts neighborhood buzzing, our reviewer Tim George wasn’t so bought:

I felt like there was not sufficient left for the viewers’s personal creativeness. There may be a lot use of screens, and pictures of characters appearing in different environments, that it begins to really feel overwrought, and begins to impede the affect of [Eryn Jean] Norvill’s efficiency.

Auckland Satisfaction
Theatres Scenes joined The Pantograph Punch, Unhealthy Apple Homosexual, and Rat World for the Auckland Satisfaction Evaluate Undertaking, aiming to supply extra essential discourse round queer theatre and efficiency work. Our reviewers lined a rainbow of reveals hosted by Auckland Satisfaction: Present Ponies, Bare & Harmful, Regarding the UFO Sighting Outdoors Mt Roskill, Auckland, Competition of Stay Artwork, F.O.L.A, The Finest is But to Come: A Queer Magic Present, Jez & Jace: Lads on Tour, Man Classes, Entry and She’s Crowning: Rebirth.

Auckland Theatre Firm
King Lear was the centrepiece of Auckland Theatre Firm’s programme, ATC’s first Shakespeare manufacturing over a decade. Many had lengthy anticipated the prospect of Michael Hurst being able to play the ageing King. Sadly, flawed staging selections contributed to the manufacturing lacking the total energy of the play. Following earlier Covid cancellations, each Witi’s Wāhine by Nancy Brunning and Issues that Matter by Gary Henderson lastly made it to the ATC stage. Issues that Matter’s “sobering account of the alarming state of our healthcare system” taking over new urgency in an election 12 months. 

Ankita Singh’s debut play, Basmati Bitch, was some of the thrilling nights I had on the theatre this 12 months. Erin O’Flahery described it as “a visually spectacular, fast-paced firecracker of a present. Suppose Blade Runner meets Scott Pilgrim… It’s uncommon that we get to see locally-produced work of this ambition and aesthetic flare on our phases…  I laughed and I yelled, and my coronary heart soared. Blazingly trendy and joyously thrilling, you may be sorry to overlook it.”

Wellington Ballroom
One other standout for me this 12 months was Arawhata, by Wellington Ballroom, which performed in Wellington, Auckland and Hawkes Bay. Following within the footsteps of queer forebears, it was a smashingly assured debut centering the tales of takatāpui and trans indigenous individuals of color. 

Hamilton
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton arrived at Spark Enviornment, the first-ever Enviornment model of the blockbuster musical. Sadly sound and sight-line points considerably marred the expertise, with a reliance on the massive screens bookending the stage. You may need been higher off staying residence and watching the Disney Plus model, if not for the standout New Zealand performers within the Australasian forged, Akina Edmonds and Matu Ngaropo. Ngaropo’s incorporation of Māoritanga into his efficiency of George Washington (together with hongi and haka) stopped the present on closing night time, the viewers erupting with proud applause. 

Theatre for Authorized Change
Two completely different New Zealand productions of Prima Facie by Australian playwright Suzie Miller performed in Auckland and Wellington on the similar time this 12 months. A transparent-eyed cross-examination of the issues in how the authorized system offers with sexual assault instances, Prima Facie is a play that has been altering authorized apply: Northern Eire Judges are required to observe the play earlier than taking the bench. Regulation professionals attending the Wellington season (starring Mel Dodge) and post-show Q&A may declare two persevering with skilled improvement factors. Because the manufacturing’ director Lyndee-Jane Rutherford famous within the programme, “artists… who typically wrestle to make a dwelling wage, will likely be educating our lawmakers and those that uphold the regulation.”

Sharu Delilkan and Tim Sales space reviewed the Auckland season season (starring Acushla-Tara Kupe): 

Miller’s intense and insightful script is an actor’s dream and Kupe devours each phrase and delivers them with nice aplomb. She grabs the viewers’s consideration from the primary second and doesn’t let go, whereas some well-timed comedic moments present a a lot wanted reprieve from the weighty subject material….After the present you permit with the sensation that it’s us, the viewers, which were cross-examined within the witness field. We left feeling exhausted however educated and enriched. Prima Facie is uncooked, with harrowing moments the place “No means no” seems to be ‘open to interpretation’ or at occasions simply merely dismissed, and asks whether or not the regulation because it stands can truly present justice in its present guise. 

New Work
There was an abundance of latest work from quite a lot of our established theatre corporations: Moe Miti by Katrina George from Pink Leap Theatre, Soiled Work by Justin Lewis and Jacob Rajan from Indian Ink Theatre Firm, I Need to Be Completely satisfied by Carl Bland from Nightsong, Coronary heart Go…Increase! from Huge, and Not Girl Sufficient by Hweiling Ow and Throw a Chinese language Funeral by Jill Kwan from Proudly Asian Theatre. The latter play had Sharu Delilkan and Tim Sales space rejoicing “Alamak!”: 

It’s such a deal with to listen to genuine Manglish at The Basement Theatre. For the uninitiated, Manglish is the ‘rojak’ (fruit salad) mixture of English-Malay-Cantonese-Hokkien-Hindi-Tamil phrases that usually pepper on a regular basis Malaysian conversations.  And Throw a Chinese language Funeral’s dialogue epitomises this Malaysian vernacular right down to its core.  The play captures a well-known slice of Malaysian life that includes excessive caricatures of the disapproving martyr-like father or mother and auntie who’re juxtaposed in opposition to their Western-wannabe offspring.

Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken invited us to test into Heartbreak Lodge. Hannah Jamieson suggested us to “put together to snigger, cry, and be completely entertained on the Heartbreak Lodge; its music-comedy concoction is the right treatment for a damaged coronary heart.”

Nathan Joe had a brand new play – type of. First developed in 2013, Joe’s Groundhog Day impressed play Shedding Face lastly made its debut, following Joe’s triumphant Scenes From a Yellow Peril final 12 months. Irene Corbett wrote: “Shedding Face grapples with the all the things bagel that’s the human coronary heart and succeeds. It is extremely Christmassy, very homosexual, and really a lot about household – equal elements joyous, horrifying, loving, and exposing. Shedding Face is a superb New Zealand play.”

Punctum Productions adopted up Shedding Face with Chick Behavior by Nuanzhi Zheng at Basement Theatre. Jess Karamjeet discovered Chick Behavior was “an uplifting present about queer, Asian girls in a punk band – and that alone in our present local weather is fairly revolutionary. What extra may Tāmaki Makaurau ask for proper now?”

Different reveals at Basement Theatre included Penny Ashton’s Shakespeare parody The Tempestuous, Henchman, Membership Waack, Chairs! and this 12 months’s Christmas present, Jingle Bellethon Telethon. 

One of the crucial enterprising debuts of latest work got here from Barden Get together’s Butterfly Smokescreen. I reported from Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour: 

The world’s solely immersive theatre expertise aboard a superyacht? That’s the daring declare made within the adverts for Butterfly Smokescreen, and I don’t have any purpose to doubt it. The notion of creatives getting the chance to make an immersive, murder-mystery theatre present happening on an precise multi-million-dollar yacht in Aotearoa looks as if a pipe dream, and but, for the previous two months, viewers members dressed to the nines in Nineteen Twenties trend have been turning as much as Auckland’s viaduct harbour for a really memorable efficiency expertise… However this was no joke for the patron, who was prepared to stump up some money. They secured the Sea Breeze III, which often charters for $100K per week. Barely one month later, they had been opening the present.

The most important shock? “The terrifyingly speedy turn-around from pitch to manufacturing has resulted in a remarkably cohesive expertise.”

New Areas
Some nice information: Mt Roskill’s Quantity Three Theatre, led by younger Pasfika theatremakers, secured a everlasting theatre on Dominion Highway. “It means any person’s a step nearer to their dream, having this useful resource right here” Lijah Mavaega instructed 1News, “It may very well be somebody simply wants an area to bounce, or have room to sing their lungs out, or get an thought out and put in on a bit of paper to share it.”

 “Nelson’s brand-new residence of storytelling”, The Skilled Theatre Firm launched this 12 months, opening with the Shakespearean impressed Mr & Mrs Macbeth of Dodson Valley Highway by Gregory Copper 

Te Pou Theatre opened its new whare at Corban Arts Property in January. Our reviewers loved Te Pou’s reveals Ngā Reta, Restricted Time Solely, Regarding the UFO Sighting Outdoors Mt Roskill, Auckland. Te Pou was a becoming host for the return season of The Haka Get together Incident by Katie Wolfe (which debuted with Auckland Theatre Firm in 2021, a standout manufacturing that 12 months) because it ready to embark on its first nationwide tour.

Anuja Mitra, who reviewed the 2021 manufacturing, and Morgan Dalton-Mill (Ngāti Whātua ki Kaipara) had a kōrero about what it meant to expertise the work at Te Pou’s Tokomanawa theatre:

A: Once I first noticed the present, it was on the sprawling stage of the ASB Waterfront Theatre. You talked about that the theatre at Te Pou has the size of a wharenui. There was a common ambiance of welcoming everybody into that area, permitting them to decide on and settle into their seats earlier than the play started about 10 minutes after the scheduled begin time. How did the stage, and bodily area extra broadly, affect your expertise of the present? 

M: The Tokomanawa theatre has a excessive ceiling, with two ceiling panels that meet the place the pou tokomanawa in a wharenui could be, and an enormous quantity of naked flooring area. So entering into the area instantly made me really feel as if I used to be in a wharenui like these I’ve been to and stayed in. I assumed this was acceptable as a result of the wharenui is the place essential kaupapa is mentioned, such because the kaupapa on the centre of this play.  

In addition they mentioned the play’s purposeful and highly effective use of kapa haka:

A: We are able to’t speak in regards to the present with out speaking in regards to the kapa haka! The kaiako kapa haka/kaitito haka was Nīkau Balme, who composed one of many haka carried out. There was some nice comedy flowing from the engineering college students’ butchering of the haka, however the one on my thoughts is certainly the ultimate haka composed by Nīkau, He Taua. It was highly effective, too, to see some viewers members carry out a haka in response.

M: That haka was a standout. Seeing it crammed me with awe and satisfaction. I’m no skilled in kapa haka or te ao Māori broadly, however I assumed He Taua was an exquisite instance of a haka with kaha, ihi and wehi. It was at full quantity and the singing was out of this world. I loved watching the taiaha used appropriately throughout this haka in comparison with the opposite parody haka by the engineering college students. I used to be additionally thrilled to see Nī lead elements of this haka. It was a transferring technique to end a transferring play — I used to be in tears for thus many causes afterwards.

Embarking on a nationwide tour following a troublesome string of Covid cancellations over a number of years, The Haka Get together Incident demonstrated once more this 12 months the ability of artwork to shine a light-weight on onerous conversations, a beacon selling understanding and connection between Māori and tauiwi throughout a very corrosive election marketing campaign. On the Wellington Theatre Awards in December, The Haka Get together Incident was awarded Manufacturing of the Yr.

Lastly, a giant thanks to Irene Corbett, who stepped up this 12 months as Auckland editor, organising, modifying and posting critiques. Irene has helped preserve Theatre Scenes going for an additional 12 months (do you know we’ve been at this since 2010?!). A particular welcome to new reviewers Hannah Jamieson and Jackshen Lee, and thanks to everybody who contributed to Theatre Scenes this 12 months. We made it!

SEE ALSO:

Theatre Scenes Theatrical Yr in Opinions: 2022; 2021; 2020; 2019 ; 2018 ; 2017 ; 2016 ; 2015 ; 2014 ; 2013 ; 2012 ; 2011 ; 2010