BATS Theatre
Sept 22-Oct 3 | Reviewed by Matthew Fairhurst

LOOSELY based on Lucy O’Brien’s time spent in a miserable mail-sorting centre, there is much in Postal that will be recognisable to anyone who has subjected themselves to the mind-numbing routine of public sector employment. Wisely, O’Brien avoids over-dependence on customer service in-jokes, and chooses instead to focus on the characters – the effect their incredibly mundane job has on their self-respect, and the coping strategies they bring in the attempt to maintain their identities despite the emptiness of their careers and their lives in general.

Aotea Centre; St James Theatre
Sept 17-26; October 10-17 | Reviewed by Samuel Holloway

BASED on the novel by Pushkin, Eugene Onegin (1878) is the story of Tatyana Larina, whose impulsive love letter to the urbane and aloof Onegin is rejected. In time, Onegin grows to regret his dismissal of Tatyana (and the killing of his best friend Lensky in a duel). But in the end Tatyana – despite an enduring love – rebuffs his pleading, and Onegin is left in despair.

By Haruhiko Sameshima
Rim Books, NZ$60 | Reviewed by Hanna Scott

LIKE AN Oscar-winning speech the first thing that hit me when I opened the pages of this almost-square format book is the list of acknowledgements on page eight. A whole page of them, stacked into categories. The most heart warming, and also the longest, is the list of “photographers that I have never met but whose work had a direct influence on me when making photographs for this book,” as if Sameshima were making a disclaimer against an accusation of inappropriate appropriation.

Phoenix Foundation drummer Richie Singleton talks about becoming Rebel Peasant on his new solo album, The Walls of the Well. Interview by BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.

MAJELLA CULLINANE is originally from Ireland and became a New Zealand resident last year. Her poetry, short stories and reviews has been published in Ireland, the UK, and the US [forthcoming JAAM 27, New Zealand]. She has won a Sean Dunne Young Writer’s Award, an Irish Arts Council Award, The Sunday Tribune/Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry and been long-listed and short-listed for Fish short fiction prizes. In 2006, she completed an MLitt. in Creative Writing from St Andrews University Scotland. She recently moved to Wellington.

ELI KENT is a 21-year-old writer from Wellington. His first full-length play Rubber Turkey was performed at BATS and Auckland’s The Basement as part of the NZ International Comedy Festival 2008 and went on to win him the Peter Harcourt Award for Outstanding New Playwright of the Year at the 2008 Chapman Tripp Theatre awards. His third play The Intricate Art of Actually Caring (performed in his bedroom) won “Best Theatre” in the NZ Fringe Festival 2009 and will tour nationally in 2010. His new work Bedlam opens at the Basement Theatre at Toi Whakaari on September 1.

Auckland Town Hall
August 20 | Reviewed by Samuel Holloway

IN THE AGE of the sub-four-minute song, listening to the work of Gustav Mahler presents a special challenge. His Sixth Symphony, performed recently to a sell-out crowd by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, weighs in at around ninety minutes, with both the first and last movements individually as long as many complete symphonies.