December 30, 2016
THEATRE WRAPS of 2016
Editor posted 22 Dec 2016, 04:56 PM / edited 22 Dec 2016, 04:57 PM
JOHN SMYTHE’s THEATRE WRAP UP of 2016
for RNZ with JIM MORA (standing in for Jesse Mulligan 1-4)
Where do we start?
This year Theatreview has commissioned and published 775 reviews of 645 performing arts productions and linked to 295 reviews from other sources, so site visitors have access to 1,070 reviews of this year’s shows.
The results of the Theatre Awards in Auckland, Dunedin and Wellington – and the NZ Comedy Awards – are published on Theatreview, so that ticks off lots of goodies.
I could discuss personal favourites but I wrote 97 reviews this year and that’s just of Wellington shows and this is a national programme.
So I thought we might acknowledge successful homegrown productions that have gone to the next level this year and toured to more than one centre.
Like That Bloody Woman – Luke Di Somma and Gregory Cooper’s rock opera about Kate Sheppard, directed by Kip Chapman. It was the hit of the Christchurch Arts Festival last year then this year was developed by the Court Theatre with the Auckland Theatre Company who staged it at the Sky City Theatre, then it returned to The Court in Christchurch.
Erin Harrington described it as a “high-impact, finely-honed production with a strong voice and point of view.” They’ve just released the original cast album; it’s heading for Dunedin next year and I hope Wellington and other regions get to see That Bloody Woman too.
Indian Ink’s The Elephant Thief by Jacob Rajan and Justin Lewis, had a try-out season in Hamilton last year then this year played Nelson, Wellington, New Plymouth and Auckland. It’s about the human failings that threaten the survival of the planet – and I found it “deeply engaging at comical, visual, sonic, physical and metaphysical levels.”
Rob Mokoraka and his director Erina Daniels also use a wealth of often comical devices to reclaim the right and responsibility of theatre to confront ‘life-and-death’ issues. Shot Bro – Confessions of a Depressed Bullet opened in Wellington, played two venues in Auckland and is likely to pop up anywhere – it played Whakatāne, a couple of weeks ago.
It reveals hidden secrets of human experience, shows us we’re not alone, takes us to places we may not want to go in reality, expands our awareness of ourselves and each other … That’s what I call first rate theatre.
It trades in empathy and compassion – which I believe live theatre does especially well.
Hayley Sproull also put herself on the line with Vanilla Miraka which she began to develop two years ago and performed in Wellington and Auckland this year. She trades in the comedy of vulnerability as she attempts to navigate a path into the Māori dimension of her heritage. Maraea Rakuraku reviewed this back in September – and sparked off an excellent comments stream on Theatreview.
Leo Gene Peters’ group, A Slightly Isolated Dog, opened their somewhat immersive Don Juan last year at Wellington’s Circa Two then took it on the road this year to Hawkes Bay, Nelson, Auckland then back to random bars in Wellington. Our reviewer Alistair Browning was seduced by it and said it’s “as much about us as it is about a lecherous hypocrite from history.”
Silo Theatre’s Hudson & Halls Live!, which was last year’s end-of-year hit in Auckland, came to the Hannah Playhouse in Wellington this year and took out four awards including Production of the Year. For me, while it seemed like lightweight festive season fare, the production ensured it was well rooted in humanity with pathos aplenty to enrich the quality comedy.
On the international stage the most mind-boggling theatre was the epic and increasingly surreal US Presidential election process. It was fascinating to see Arthur Meek’s On the Conditions and Possibilities of Hillary Clinton Taking Me as Her Young Lover and Alexander Sparrow’s The President play out as the whole catastrophe unfolded.
Arthur’s itinerary this year included the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where Fest Mag described On the Conditions as “deeply, provocatively political” and “top notch political satire to boot.”
The President imagines the unthinkable: that Donald Trump has won and we have been summoned as potential ghost writers of his next book. Alexander previewed it in Hamilton then took it to The Dark Room in Palmerston North and BATS Theatre in Wellington, where I found it to be “an unnervingly astute work of political satire.”
Then it opened at Auckland’s Classic Studio on the 9th of November just one minute after it became official that the ‘unthinkable’ had actually happened. Nik Smythe wrote on Theatreview: “If Trump had lost it would be easy to relax and chuckle at the skewering of a man more born to be disdainfully parodied than anyone else in our time. Because he didn’t, the comedy is exponentially darker: funny, clever and depressing.”
We should also note that this year the Auckland Theatre Company opened its excellent new ASB Waterfront Theatre with Billy Elliot The Musical which Lexie Matheson described as “simply superb at every level.”
While that was an international blockbuster set in Thatcher’s England in the context of the coal miner’s strike in the mid 1980s, Lorae Parry mined the 1912 Waihi Gold Miner’s strike to create Scarlet and Gold, staged on a shoestring by an independent co-op with a cast of 14 in tiny Circa Two. “As timely, relevant, engaging, entertaining and thought-provoking as one would hope any play to be,” is how I summed it up.
So that’s just 10 of the 645 productions Theatreview has reviewed this year.
Regarding the future of Theatreview …
[not included on the RNZ chat as we ran out of time]
We’ve put a statement up on the homepage about the future of Theatreview in 2017 but in a nutshell:
Our output has increased a lot since we started in 2006 and over the past five years Creative New Zealand allowed us to apply for project grants which gave us core funding to build on. But it has never felt appropriate for us to compete with creative arts projects when we’re part of the supportive infrastructure – and because it’s competitive, and very prescriptive, our last two applications have been declined.
But there is strong support from many quarters for us to continue – not least because Theatreview’s freely searchable archive of production information, reviews and commentary has become a dynamic and invaluable resource to a broad range of people.
So, while ways and means are being explored of finding a more sustainable funding model for Theatreview, we have decided to carry on until the end of March.
Normally $10,800 would get us through three months, we could scrape through until 31 March on $7,200 and the year has run out without our being able to source such a gift. So our managing editors and – as always – our reviewers have volunteered to keep going so that there won’t be a large gap in the record.
Editor posted 30 Dec 2016, 07:29 PM / edited 30 Dec 2016, 08:24 PM
SCENE BY JAMES: 2016 – A Theatrical Year in Review
James Wenley
Engaging with our Worlds
The meme that gained exponential currency as 2016 trudged along was that 2016 was a terrible year. Aleppo, terror, celebrity deaths, Brexit, Harambe, and the coming of Trump- – what started as a joke seems to have become a genuine expression of the globe having entirely written off this fucked up year. Yes, this contemporary perception is all relative (and aren’t we lucky to be able to fret about these things through our screens), but our ability to take the pulse of the globe, to send our missives of thoughts and emotions into cyberspace, seems increasingly intensified. But also, as the US election showed the world, increasingly polarised. We become stuck in our own feedback loop, Facebook and Twitter curations feeding back what we already know to be true. We are connected like never before, but only in our own spheres of algorithmic influence.
Sometimes theatre can seem quite disconnected to all that is trending in our social media bubbles. This can be good, escapism and social company can be just the ticket. It’s also one of the few bastions where our total attention is still demanded. And this a great thing. Mostly, our theatre audiences are self-selected. They too go to shows that will confirm their biases and world view. [More]
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