In Skin, directed by Rising Voices Youth Poetry Movement’s Grace Taylor, the company delve deep past the surface to deliver a series of profound, self-penned spoken word meditations on their lives, experiences, and attitudes. The content is diverse, as an example, Alice Pearson opens with a reflection on the inadequacy of glad wrap, which transitions into a thoughtful consideration of Rewa Worley’s contemporary Maori cultural identity. Pearson wraps Worley in the wrap as we enter, the visual image of containment finding release in Worley’s words.

The poetry, honed through workshops, and deeply felt by the writer-performers, sends shockwaves through my own skin. There are vital issues canvassed here … [more]

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Would you like an example of the direction modern youth-based theatre is heading these days? I’ll give you three. They’re all playing at The Basement theatre currently, staged by Auckland Theatre Company’s initiative for finding, engaging and broadening current youth talent. 

It’s a kind of mini festival of theatre, spoken word poetry, vaudeville, music, dance and even a little busking in the foyer. Each work has been fully developed by peers and professionals to bring out maximum vibrancy and truth. 

The three main works comprising the core of this exciting season could not be more polarised to each other: a staged poetic montage (Skin), a cryptic broken semi-circus (Giant Teeth) and a tightly wound provoking thriller (DNA). However, each highlights the huge strengths of their performers, both individually and as a collective, illustrating to all just how fully vital, healthy and alive the performance scene is in Auckland and offering excitement to audiences that the future pool of performance talent is indeed looking extremely bright. 

The Basement mainspace doors burst open and a team of dancers, calling themselves Fine Fatale, writhe, boogie and cajole the audience in the packed foyer, creating space where there isn’t really any and confronting us with a deep sensual hip-hop embrace that’s at once uncomfortable and completely friendly. This is a strong opening to the evening as a whole, serving to bring us all together and entice us into the mainspace with a kind of broken, sexy powhiri. 

The ten performers of Skin are all adorning the width-wise traverse stage space when we enter and once we’re all gathered launch into material that is as wide ranging as it is deeply personal.

Themes of ‘skin politics’ – gender, cultural identity and multiplicity, self-image, entrapment, body horror – are explored and burst wide open by the cast as they find a new means of broadcasting their work through theatre. So dance, mime, props, characterisations, percussions and emotional layers are used as process to leap the words off the page and wrench new meanings and something greater than each poet had originally envisioned, while still honouring intent. 

Each poem contained within the work is the creation of the performer, so there’s a terrific intimacy and sense of truth to all delivery. These ten poets all give themselves 100% to the work, to each other’s words where needed and hold the respect of their peers when flying solo. Ensemble is key here and all understand the give and take responsibilities required. 

While the writing of all is sound and has been worked well, through “self, peer and professional editing methods” there is the odd sequence that seems a touch bordering on the angsty. However, these are well understood and balanced out by director Grace Taylor, who has armed her cast with all of the craft and emotional intelligence needed to keep the heart and soul of the ideas alive and buoyant in the eyes of the audience. 

Simon Coleman’s multi-purpose rectangular set in the middle of the space provides angles and levels to accentuate the movement and tones of the work, while on its surfaces Rachel Marlow’s subtle lighting punctuates place and keeps a consistency throughout. 

Brave, thoughtful, exciting, smart and evocative spoken word theatre is so rare these days, simply because of a reliance on technologies to heighten theatricality, so this stripped back staging to allow the words to come to the forefront is refreshing.

See also reviews for Giant Teeth and DNA in ATC’s The Selecta season.

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