Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability (Australia), Theatre Today (Singapore) and Diverse Abilities Dance Collective’s (Singapore) show SAME-SAME 2.0 is an ensemble devised dance and theatre production that celebrates friendship across multiple borders. The piece is simple and radiates with the joy of its creators, constantly surprising the audience with the personalities of the performers.
Emilie Hope Genoveva is a fish. She wasn’t always a fish, but now she is, and they say she always will be. This is how I Know You, Fish begins, with a ‘prologue’. The Stage at BATS Theatre is dark, almost bare, with only a table at one end and a little wooden desk at the other, and Genoveva (Genoveva Reverte) walks on and sits at the desk and lets us know she’s a fish. As the lights come up, she wears a grey sweatshirt, grey leggings (with a gather up the side reminiscent of a fish, nice), grey socks, and a piece of white fabric tacked over her chest stating: FISH COSTUME. Ridiculous! I think. I’m in.
Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin The Rebel Alliances’ show Back To Square One? by Anders Falstie-Jensen is powerful and personal. Necessary viewing for the times we’re in, an age-old lesson on connection made for our COVID-19 world. It is about human connection, told simply through spoken word and drawn chalk.
Jenny Nimon Now Face the World by Curvebox theatre company is a devised show about every arts student’s worst nightmare: graduating. Their Fringe description promises ‘an irreverent fever dream of our greatest artistic career hopes and heartbreaks’, and I would say that a ‘fever dream’ is somewhat close to what is delivered.
Austin Harrison Glass Town is a new offering from Knot Theatre. They’re coming in hot off the back of Bruises (Winner – Grand Design Award, NZ Fringe 2021) and a nomination for most promising emerging company at last year’s Fringe, and I am so excited to see what they will serve up, 12 months on. They say the second album is the hardest, and I’m afraid it may well be true for this production.
Emilie Hope As I walk into Te Auaha’s Tapere Iti, Rascal Flatts ‘Life is a Highway’ is playing, and I recognise Rusty & Jeb’s Rootin Tootin Cowboy Hour will be a highly stylised show. And I am not wrong. When Jebidiah “Jeb” Buchanan (Dylan Hutton) decides to leave his sheltered life on the farm to find his missing pa, and Rusty Buttons (Adam Herbert) continues his search for gold while running from bounty hunters, their paths meet and their lives are forever changed through friendship.
Jenny Nimon Sarah Harpur (writer and performer) and Carrie Green’s (director) The Shit Kid describes itself as ‘a one-person play about a mediocre person’. It boasts all the things you’d want to boast about: sexy horses, Mark Todd fever dreams, your brother being a four-time Olympic gold medallist instead of you. This show is light and funny, and it will hit home for anyone who has ever felt exactly adequate.
Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin Brick Haus Productions' show Breakfast Time is an exciting jumping off point for the young company, with this piece being an exploration of, and a love letter to, the Aotearoa film and theatre industry.
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