Circa Theatre
Oct 13-Nov 10 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

Home Land begins with an actual, physical fall when ailing patriarch Ken loses his grip on his walking frame and it ends with a far more metaphorical ‘fall’ – the coming to awareness of his granddaughter Sophie of the inevitable effects of ageing and mortality. This is incredibly weighty subject matter, but it is dealt with in such a sensitive way that the play does not seem heavy handed. Quite the opposite, it is moving because of its incredible realism, under which lies rich symbolism and metaphor. The story is at once tragic and commonplace, charged with tension and yet entirely natural.

Edo de Waart conducts Planet Damnation
October 19 | Reviewed by Mark Dryburgh

THE WORLD premiere of Planet Damnation by John Psathas was a dramatic and exciting piece. It’s title was taken from a book by the Middle East war reporter Robert Fisk. Fisk has been reporting wars on Middle Eastern nations for thirty years. He is one of the few independent reporters that has a voice. On the surface, the announcement of return to war in Iraq astonished Fisk as he noted first-hand, how the US administration appeared as gangsters to present impossible cartoons of Iraqi mobile weapons labs. To Fisk the situation was unbelievable while he has reported American troops using atomic weapons in Iraq since the gulf war in 1991, only three years after eight years of war in alliance with Saddam against Iran. This is the deeper viewpoint that Fisk embodies, accurately regarding transnational corporate media (including NZ) as spokespeople for the world elite. John Psathas also notes Noam Chomsky and John Pilger as an impetus for his motivation. Noam Chomsky’s focus has been to draw attention to the genocides (media word: ethnic cleansing) facilitated by these regimes, notably the millions sacrificed in Rwanda and Cambodia. Their focus is beyond politics rather comparing rhetoric with outcomes.

By Craig Sherborne
VUP, NZ$30 | Reviewed by Amy Brown

IF JAMES JOYCE had spent his teenage years growing up on a dairy farm in New Zealand, and going to private school in Sydney, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man might have had an uncanny resemblance to Sherborne’s second memoir, Muck. Both are autobiographical, read like sprightly novels, and are narrated by a delightfully clumsy young man. Both follow the usual pitfalls that come with adolescence and grappling to find one’s place in the world. Education, class consciousness, sex and death all pose problems for Sherborne’s Lord Muck (as they do for Joyce’s Stephen Dedalus) as he stumbles his way into adulthood.

BATS Theatre
Oct 23-Nov 3 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

IT’S NOT just an entertaining change when someone produces a piece of theatre that is experimental and challenging – it’s a long held sigh of relief. Settling, the first of the two STAB 2007 commissioned works, pushes the boundaries of realistic device to create an eerie, surreal experience, a mix between a humorous radio play and a David Lynch style surrealist epic for stage.

St James Theatre
October 13-20 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman

THIS IS my second opera of 2007 and I have only been to a handful in my life so far, so forgive this neophyte’s attempt at reviewing the recent NBR New Zealand Opera production of Puccini’s final opera, Turandot.

Singer, poet, actor, and Dead Brothers member Delaney Davidson returns from Switzerland to his homeland New Zealand for a one-off gig. He talks to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM previews the Big Day Out’s first announcement of acts for 2008.

IT’S OFTEN hard to judge the first announcements of the Big Day Outs. Especially when for many people the second and third line-ups frequently tip the balance in favour of going. However, for most music fans there should be something to check out already, even in the first line-up announcement, and Big Day Out 2008 is already shaping up to be an excellent one.

Salmonella Dub’s most distinctive member, Tiki Taane, recently departed from the band with little fanfare to embark on solo album Past, Present, Future. He talks to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM about Dub, Shapeshifter, and reinventing himself.

Te Whaea Theatre
October 19-27 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

WITH ITS large cast and abundant female roles, Tom Stoppard’s masterpiece Arcadia is an apt choice for the graduating class of Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School. This almost gratuitous intellectual work explores wide and ranging ideas, from the inherent value of the search for knowledge, the gradual dissipation of energy in the universe and the celebrity of academia, to the failings of the enlightenment project and the nature of ‘Truth’. Threads of physics, mathematics, literature and architecture offer pathways into detailed and revealing conversations, while a healthy narrative of romance, humour and mystery maintains theatrical momentum.

By Rae Varcoe
VUP, $25 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman

RAE VARCOE works as a blood diseases physician at Auckland City Hospital. This book of poetry (80 pages), likely triggered by the completion of the MA course at Victoria University in 1997, collects a handful of poems that have appeared previously (in the likes of Sport, New Zealand Books and, fittingly, Annals Of Internal Medicine) as well as many appearing in print for the first time.

In an essay first published in Landfall, novelist PAULA MORRIS considers the perils of reviewing in New Zealand.

Herald Theatre
October 18-27 | Reviewed by Renee Liang

WHAT DO you get when you cross Greek-tragi-comedy set in South Auckland, a twisted modern-day ghost story and a romance between a supermarket delivery boy and an agoraphobic has-been actress? PlayRight 07: The Season, of course.

Downstage Theatre
Oct 13-Nov 10 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

THE SOMEWHAT misleading publicity for this show does nothing to reveal its depth, humour and honesty. Don’t be fooled – this is not a show about two laughing men who are old enough to know better (thought that certainly comes into it). Rather, I’m Not Rappaport is an oft hard-hitting examination of the conflict, cruelty and loss of independence old age brings, interlaced with wit and stirring monologues. Topically relevant and theatrically striking, this Tony Award winner is well worth a view.

Soundings Theatre, Te Papa
September 28-29 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

CYNTHIA FORTITUDE’s first farewell is certainly deserving of a sequel. This mix of operatic comedy, semi-dignified slapstick and love narrative, ceremoniously accompanied by a chamber orchestra, appeals to astute viewers with knowledge of classical music and general fans of (inoffensive) comedy alike.

San Francisco Bathhouse
October 15 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

APPARENTLY Kristin Hersh is trying to become a New Zealand resident. Someone should fast-track her application so we can see more of her here. On Monday night indie legend Hersh played to a packed and frozen Wellington crowd, showcasing music from her prolific solo and Throwing Muses’ work. It was just her and her guitar, a little frame belying a voice that seems to sift through charcoal. It was a voice and performance that had the audience rapt.

Hakan Hardenberger
October 12 | Reviewed by Arjun Harindranath

RAVEL AND DEBUSSY are often paired in symphony programmes. Having spearheaded the Romantic era, both composers demand a careful balancing of gentle and extravagant themes; a demand well satisfied by the NZSO on Friday night. Following the delicate Prélude a l’après-midi d’un faune’, the NZSO treated an unusually small crowd to Ravel’s Rhapsodie Espagnole. The latter builds up to the vivacious toe-tapping movement Feria. Both pieces were separated by Turnage’s From the Wreckage, a single movement trumpet concerto written specifically for acclaimed performer Håkan Hardenberger, who made use of the standard trumpet, a piccolo trumpet and the jazzy mellow flugelhorn. As the title would suggest, Wreckage maintains a frenetic pace full of discordant melodies before an elevating piccolo trumpet chimes along with a tolling of bells.

TAPAC, Tempo° Dance Festival
October 8 | Reviewed by Renee Liang

THIS multidisciplinary work, featuring collaboration between dancers, graphic artists, videographers, lighting designers and dance researchers, provided a challenging platform for nascent dancers from AUT University’s Bachelor of Dance program, about to graduate its first crop. The nearly sold-out performance generated vigorous discussion and debate at the after-performance Q+A, where lecturers and students answered questions about their working processes.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM thinks back to the nineties, where the likes of Garageland provided the soundtrack to his teen years. He talks to lead singer Jeremy Eade of the eve of the band’s reunion gig.

Maidment Theatre
October 10-20 | Reviewed by Renee Liang

IN THIS hilariously twisted adaptation by Patrick Graham, a band of motley tramps capture two modern-day girlies gossiping on the edge of what appears to be a Mad Max-esque rubbish tip, and inexplicably force them to perform in their staging of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, the lines of which (incidentally) the girls know off by heart.

Edited by Fiona Farrell
Random House, NZ$35 | Reviewed by Amy Brown

FIONA FARRELL, recipient of the Prime Minister’s Award for Literature for her contributions to New Zealand fiction, has chosen for this collection a diverse and strong array of short stories and excerpts from novels by writers ranging from brand new to fully established. Despite the uninspiring cover (a photographed brooding sky and tussock-covered sand dune suggests stereotypically dark and provincial New Zealand tales rather than the far from clichéd variety the book has to offer) Farrell’s intelligent and enthusiastic introduction and the high standard of her choices make this an enjoyable and thorough showcase of our country’s recent fiction.

By William Gibson
Penguin, NZ$37 | Reviewed by Sam Bradford

IT MUST be tough being William Gibson. Having invented the word ‘cyberspace’ and predicted the rise of the Internet, he may feel a certain pressure to keep writing from ahead of the curve, rather than, for example, trying his hand at romantic historical fiction for a bit of a breather. He’s stuck to his strengths, and Spook Country will do nothing to harm his reputation as a writer with an unmatched sensitivity to the mysterious and changeable currents of culture and technology.

MARK AMERY finds aspiration in the works of two artists, Eve Armstrong and Sarah Jane Parton, curated as part of City Gallery Wellington’s Contemporary Projects series.

Maidment Theatre
Sept 20-Oct 6 | Reviewed by Imogen Neale

WHERE DO you come from?

Bear with me; I promise this has nothing to do with how one holds a conversation with an eight-year-old about the facts of life.

Herald Theatre
Sept 26-Oct 11 | Reviewed by Renee Liang

SARA JULI is a twenty-something performance artist based in New York. After “squirm-inducing discussions” with her husband on the usual domestic tripwire of money, she decides to settle the matter by creating a show in which she gives away her actual life savings to members of the audience, with the option of an “honesty box” return at the end of the show.

BATS Theatre
October 3-7 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

ONE HOUR and forty minutes of four men (and one woman) in suits ranged across the stage talking politics and economics could be deadly dull. Adapted by Dean Parker from Nicky Hager’s book, The Hollow Men is far from it, and contains moments of humour as it depicts how the National party led by Don Brash managed to lose an election; coming so close to victory, only to throw it all away.

By Nick Hornby
Penguin, NZ$35 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman

Slam is Nick Hornby’s first novel for a teenage audience; his first foray in to the over-crowded but seemingly lapped-up category of “Young Adult Fiction”. But fans of his work to date will enjoy this deceptive book, filled with Hornby-isms.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM trawls the music calendar to bring us the month’s best gigs. This October: Die! Die! Die!, Kristin Hersh, Supergroove + Upcoming Acts, Big Day Out.

SJD, otherwise known as Sean James Donnelly, opens up to BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM about his latest album, the sublime Songs from a Dictaphone.