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The Spinoff
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
Why do so many New Zealand plays have such short lives?
Playwright Sam Brooks on the importance of looking back to move forward. Theatre is an ephemeral art form. That's the beauty of it. For an hour or two, the performance exists for the people who are in the same room as it, and then it goes away. The next night, the same actors might say the same lines in the same places, but it's still different. It's never the exact same thing. Then the play closes, and it goes away. Sometimes, it goes away forever. Whether it happened at a tiny fringe venue or a massive stage, there are plays that are one-and-done, for whatever reason. That's especially true in New Zealand, which unfortunately lacks a culture of revival, or revisiting shows. Reviving a show is something that the average theatregoer might be aware of without knowing the exact definition. Essentially, it's the practice of putting on a show again after its premiere run, with a completely new team and interpretation. The recent production of Black Faggot that played at Christchurch's Court Theatre and then Q Theatre is a revival of the 2013 production, for example, with none of the same creative team. That's meaningfully distinct from, say, Silo Theatre's upcoming production of Mother Play – while it might be a New Zealand premiere, it is a completely new production. Other countries, particularly those with strong theatregoing traditions, have much stronger revival cultures. Shows get enshrined into the canon and have new productions, and new interpretations of them produced regularly, with people often showing up in droves. For example: If you're a certain brand of homosexual, you'll have strong opinions on Audra McDonald's take on Gypsy's protagonist Gypsy Rose Lee compared to Patti LuPone's take, compared to Bernadette Peters', and so on. If that meant nothing to you, sub in 'All Blacks kicker' for 'Gypsy Rose Lee', 'Dan Carter' for 'Audra McDonald', 'Beauden Barrett' for Patti LuPone', and 'Andrew Mehrtens' for 'Bernadette Peters' (apologies to both fans of musical theatre and the ABs). This is the kind of thing that doesn't happen here, even for international plays. There have been two professional productions of A Streetcar Named Desire in Auckland in my lifetime, for example, which means two chances for me, and any Auckland theatregoer, to see one of the most acclaimed plays of all time. New Zealand, simply put, does not have that same culture of revival – especially when it comes to our own 'canon'. Once a play is performed, it often exists for its initial season and very rarely again. There are a few reasons for that. The relative youth of playwriting in this country is one of those – Roger Hall's Glide Time is widely regarded as the turning point for audiences recognising that New Zealand could generate its own theatre is only 50 years old, and even the grandfather of New Zealand theatre, End of the Golden Weather, is just 75 years old. (That one was actually revived earlier this year, as the show that opened Christchurch's Court Theatre's new venue.) The worldwide theatre canon is hundreds, even thousands of years old. Compared to that, our canon may as well be a catalogue – and I might say that our best plays hold their own on the world stage with theatre cultures older and better supported. This same thinking has also historically been applied to basically anything New Zealand has succeeded at, but I promise it is also true of theatre. We also have a culture of making, and developing, new work. We develop, we produce, we premiere and we move on. Premiere productions being performed only once is an issue that extends beyond the cultural to the commercial – getting funding for a new work is easy, for whatever reason, but increasingly difficult for subsequent remounts. It does mean, however, that there are absolute diamonds that exist for one moment of brilliance, remembered by only those who saw them, before dipping into the archives, with only the most nerdy theatre people remembering they existed. (I think of work like Silo Theatre's Cellfish, and Miria George's and what remains as works that feel even more relevant now than when they premiered.) There is also a lack of access, for commercial reasons. We are a small country where theatre is often vying for funding against art forms with deeper roots, which means less money is available for venues to stay open, companies to develop and produce theatre, and even for playwrights to write them. With perhaps a little bit too much transparency: of the 53 plays I've written, I have been commissioned to write once, and received funding from Creative New Zealand to write two of these. The rest have been written under my own steam. In short: Less money means less art, less art being made means less art being seen, means less art in the canon. That access extends to it being difficult to find and read scripts in the first place. Places like Unity and second-hand bookstores might have a play section, but very rarely will you find New Zealand plays there. Similarly, libraries might have a resource, but while a great many New Zealand plays have been published, they are more representative of our canon than they are entirely reflective. Playmarket, New Zealand's playwriting agency, is a great resource for New Zealand work if it takes your fancy! Also? Reading a play – and I say this in earnest as someone who both writes and reads plays – is not the most interesting thing. It's a very different thing to imagine the world of a play in your mind compared to, say, imagining the world of a novel. Plays are often written for enthusiasts and experts to read and interpret, not for a general audience. They're less like books and more like blueprints. A play isn't like a book. It's not a song. It's not like a movie – even in the rare case when a play is filmed, it's no substitute for actually being there. Once those things are produced, they exist. If they're lucky enough to be a part of the canon, they're enshrined in perpetuity. Plays are a different beast. 'You had to be there' is tragically real – for a play if you actually weren't there for the premiere production, there's a very real chance that you might have missed it. This week at Auckland's Basement Theatre, I've been fortunate enough to be asked to curate a series of playreadings called Firing the Canon, which will involve five plays being performed for free, with 37 actors, emerging and experienced, performing across the week. These five include the aforementioned Glide Time by Roger Hall (marking his Basement Theatre debut), Smashed by Tawhi Thomas, Rēwena by Whiti Hereaka, The Packer by Dianna Fuemana and Cow by Jo Randerson. The goal is for the series to run long-term, in venues across the country, and to breathe new life into plays that might otherwise not be performed, for any of the above reasons. There's no way I can cover the huge spectrum of New Zealand theatre with only five plays. I couldn't even do it with 50. But it's a little bit of a light shone in the right direction. Our theatre history might not be as huge as the UK's, or the USA's, but it's pretty mighty. But without an audience showing up, an audience taking interest, it might not be there at all. Theatre is an ephemeral form, but when an audience shows up, it can feel eternal.
Scoop
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Call Me Mother. Or Don't.
A gin-soaked martini of memory, glamour, and Mommie Dearest theatrics, The Milford Asset Management Season of Mother Play is the latest triumph from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel, playing 04 – 20 Sep at Q Theatre. This gloriously unhinged new work makes its Aotearoa debut in a Silo Theatre production directed by Sophie Roberts, whose 11-year tenure as Artistic Director comes to a close with this bold, beautiful farewell. Fresh from Broadway and a 2025 season at Melbourne Theatre Company, Mother Play lands at Q Theatre with fierce poise and a matching handbag. This is not a gentle homage to motherhood. It's a work of high style - an outrageous yet intimate portrait of a family that just won't stay packed, no matter how many times they're evicted. Told over five domestic evictions and four decades of American upheaval, it's a story about staying, leaving, returning, and the psychic rent we pay for love. It's 1962. Phyllis Herman - cigarette in one hand, drink in the other - is dragging her children, Carl and Martha, into yet another cockroach infested crumbling apartment. Since their father disappeared with the family savings, the Hermans have been on the move. Phyllis is fierce, fabulous, and wholly unequipped for the changing tides of the twentieth century, especially when those tides arrive in the form of her children's sexual and political awakenings. As the Hermans lurch through the decades - the idealism of the '60s, the sexual revolutions of the '70s, the grief and reckoning of the AIDS crisis - they carry with them every eviction notice, every insult, every brutal act of devotion. The question that echoes across the eras: can you choose to love, even when it hurts? Mother Play is both a feast for actors and a balm for any audience member who's looked their mother in the eye and seen both a monster and an angel. Vogel's script is filled with high camp humour, theatrical flair, and moments of crushing vulnerability. It's the poetic intensity of Tennessee Williams entwined with Grey Gardens ' faded flair, and David Lynch's surreal edge, wrapped in leopard print and laced with Schitt's Creek 's sharp wit. The cast devouring this feast is Aotearoa screen and stage legend Jennifer Ludlam as Phyllis (in the role originated by Jessica Lange on Broadway), alongside Amanda Tito (Scenes from the Climate Era, Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.) and Tim Earl (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time). This is theatre for those who grew up queer in a house that never quite felt like home. It's for the children of complicated women and the survivors of tangled family politics. It's for the fans of Vogel's How I Learned to Drive, the readers of American family epics, and lovers of stories that ache and glitter in equal measure. It's not sentimental. It's not safe. But it is spectacular. Bringing the spectacular to the stage is a stacked design team – lighting and sound design by Sean Lynch (Camping, Hir), costume design by Tautahi Subritzky (A Slow Burlesque, ScatterGun), and set design by Daniel Williams (Taniwha, Camping) and Talia Pua (A Slow Burlesque, Rituals of Similarity). Mother Play is also a significant moment for Sophie Roberts, who signs off after more than a decade of bold, genre-defying work at Silo Theatre. In curating her final season, she's chosen to explore the theme of motherhood in all its forms, and this play is its crown jewel. 'As I finish this chapter of my life, I've been drawn to stories about evolution, of self, of family, of identity,' says Roberts. 'The 'mother' of the title is metaphor, myth, tragedy and comedy rolled into one. Phyllis is the mother of all mothers. And this play is a riot. And a reckoning.' Mother Play earned four Tony Award nominations in 2024, won two Drama Desk Awards and an Outer Critics Circle Award, and has already been heralded as a new American classic. If Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie had a queer cousin who rearranged the furniture, sprayed roach killer, and lit a cigarette with your childhood trauma, this would be it. The Milford Asset Management Season of MOTHER PLAY a play in five evictions By Paula Vogel 04 – 20 September 2025 Q Theatre, Rangatira Presented with support from Q Theatre Duration: 105 minutes, no interval On sale now at
Scoop
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Firing The Canon Pays Tribute To Aotearoa New Zealand's Playwriting Icons
New Zealand's most famous office comedy, a raucous play about rowdy high schoolers, a West Auckland tribute, a lesson on how to make rēwena, and a story about a girl who wants to make a cow out of leaves make up the five plays in this inaugural season of Firing the Canon, a series of five free playreadings at Basement Theatre that runs from July 8 – 12. Firing the Canon presents five readings of plays from Aotearoa New Zealand's massive back catalogue – plays that are important to our history, plays that represent the best of the best, and plays that are just plain cool – and pairs them up with Basement Theatre artists new and familiar. Some of these plays are having their Auckland debut, some their Basement Theatre debut, and some are old favourites having fresh and exciting new outings. The common theme? They're all from New Zealand, they speak to the history of our theatre, and they're free to attend. Firing the Canon will bring over 35 performers from Basement Theatre 's past, present and future together between July 8 – July 12 to breathe new life into stories that have lost none of their potency, vibrancy and humour since their premieres. It will also give audiences the opportunity to engage with stories that are foundational to New Zealand's storied history of playwriting. The five plays being read are: Glide Time by Roger Hall, directed by Sean Rivera on Tuesday July 8. A ground breaking comedy that changed the course of New Zealand theatre when it premiered in 1976. It follows life in the stores board of a department of the NZ Public Service, and examines the lives of those forced to work with each other every day in a job none of them likes. This reading will be Sir Roger Hall 's Basement Theatre debut, and the first time that Glide Time has been performed in Auckland since a Silo Theatre production in 2006. Smashed by Tāwhi Thomas, directed by Mark Chayanat Whittet on Wednesday July 10. A spunky crew of teens work, groove, laugh and fight their way into the future in a punchy series of short theatrical vignettes with a theme of kids under pressure. Thomas is best known for plays Have Car Will Travel and Hui, and this marks this play's Basement Theatre debut. Rēwena by Whiti Hereaka, directed by Katrina George on Thursday July 10. Maggie, the proprietress at the local gastro pub, The Thymus of the Lambs, is holding a class in Rewena making on the night of the final of popular reality TV series A Baker's Dozen. Rumour has it that the local boy finalist, Neill, was taught to cook by Maggie in this very kitchen; but Maggie's not one to gossip. Whiti Hereaka is an award-winning playwright and novelist, winning the most prestigious award for playwriting in New Zealand (the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award) and for fiction (the Ockham Prize for Fiction for Kurangaituku). Rēwena premiered at Centrepoint Theatre in 2013 to rave reviews. The Packer by Dianna Fuemana, directed by Shay McKendrick on Friday July 11. A play about Shane, a white trash 'westie', is an unflinching look at suburban life 'in the hood'. Gin, weed, speed – everyone's got their poison – and mixed up with their culture clashes, next-door neighbours and sexual politics, it's a potent combination. The Packer premiered in 2004, and it has received acclaim in New Zealand, Edinburgh, Melbourne and Sydney. Cow by Jo Randerson, directed by Nī Dekkers-Reihana on Saturday July 12. All Beth wants to do is make a cow out of leaves, but her efforts are thwarted by, amongst others, a father who thinks he's a cat, an interfering yuppie couple and a loud American tourist. A black comedy set on a farm. Cow returns to the Basement Theatre stage after a season in 2011 as part of Auckland Theatre Company's Young and Hungry programme. This series is curated and produced by award-winning playwright and journalist Sam Brooks (Burn Her, Riding in Cars with (Mostly Straight) Boys). He says, 'New Zealand has a massive and mighty canon of playwriting that punches well above its weight. Many of our plays are studied and performed in academic contexts but so rarely get seen professionally performed – or even read. This inaugural series of Firing the Canon will not only give an outing to work that has been so vital to the history of theatre, but a chance for artists and audiences to wrangle with it.' All playreadings are free to attend. This series is produced by Smoke Labours Productions. All these readings are free, produced by arrangement with Playmarket NZ, and proudly supported by Auckland Council and the City Centre Targeted Rate.
Scoop
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Firing The Canon Pays Tribute To Aotearoa New Zealand's Playwriting Icons
New Zealand's most famous office comedy, a raucous play about rowdy high schoolers, a West Auckland tribute, a lesson on how to make rēwena, and a story about a girl who wants to make a cow out of leaves make up the five plays in this inaugural season of Firing the Canon, a series of five free playreadings at Basement Theatre that runs from July 8 - 12. Firing the Canon presents five readings of plays from Aotearoa New Zealand's massive back catalogue – plays that are important to our history, plays that represent the best of the best, and plays that are just plain cool – and pairs them up with Basement Theatre artists new and familiar. Some of these plays are having their Auckland debut, some their Basement Theatre debut, and some are old favourites having fresh and exciting new outings. The common theme? They're all from New Zealand, they speak to the history of our theatre, and they're free to attend. Firing the Canon will bring over 35 performers from Basement Theatre 's past, present and future together between July 8 - July 12 to breathe new life into stories that have lost none of their potency, vibrancy and humour since their premieres. It will also give audiences the opportunity to engage with stories that are foundational to New Zealand's storied history of playwriting. The five plays being read are: Glide Time by Roger Hall, directed by Sean Rivera on Tuesday July 8. A ground breaking comedy that changed the course of New Zealand theatre when it premiered in 1976. It follows life in the stores board of a department of the NZ Public Service, and examines the lives of those forced to work with each other every day in a job none of them likes. This reading will be Sir Roger Hall 's Basement Theatre debut, and the first time that Glide Time has been performed in Auckland since a Silo Theatre production in 2006. Smashed by Tāwhi Thomas, directed by Mark Chayanat Whittet on Wednesday July 10. A spunky crew of teens work, groove, laugh and fight their way into the future in a punchy series of short theatrical vignettes with a theme of kids under pressure. Thomas is best known for plays Have Car Will Travel and Hui, and this marks this play's Basement Theatre debut. Rēwena by Whiti Hereaka, directed by Katrina George on Thursday July 10. Maggie, the proprietress at the local gastro pub, The Thymus of the Lambs, is holding a class in Rewena making on the night of the final of popular reality TV series A Baker's Dozen. Rumour has it that the local boy finalist, Neill, was taught to cook by Maggie in this very kitchen; but Maggie's not one to gossip. Whiti Hereaka is an award-winning playwright and novelist, winning the most prestigious award for playwriting in New Zealand (the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award) and for fiction (the Ockham Prize for Fiction for Kurangaituku). Rēwena premiered at Centrepoint Theatre in 2013 to rave reviews. The Packer by Dianna Fuemana, directed by Shay McKendrick on Friday July 11. A play about Shane, a white trash 'westie', is an unflinching look at suburban life 'in the hood'. Gin, weed, speed - everyone's got their poison - and mixed up with their culture clashes, next-door neighbours and sexual politics, it's a potent combination. The Packer premiered in 2004, and it has received acclaim in New Zealand, Edinburgh, Melbourne and Sydney. Cow by Jo Randerson, directed by Nī Dekkers-Reihana on Saturday July 12. All Beth wants to do is make a cow out of leaves, but her efforts are thwarted by, amongst others, a father who thinks he's a cat, an interfering yuppie couple and a loud American tourist. A black comedy set on a farm. Cow returns to the Basement Theatre stage after a season in 2011 as part of Auckland Theatre Company's Young and Hungry programme. This series is curated and produced by award-winning playwright and journalist Sam Brooks (Burn Her, Riding in Cars with (Mostly Straight) Boys). He says, 'New Zealand has a massive and mighty canon of playwriting that punches well above its weight. Many of our plays are studied and performed in academic contexts but so rarely get seen professionally performed – or even read. This inaugural series of Firing the Canon will not only give an outing to work that has been so vital to the history of theatre, but a chance for artists and audiences to wrangle with it.' All playreadings are free to attend. This series is produced by Smoke Labours Productions. All these readings are free, produced by arrangement with Playmarket NZ, and proudly supported by Auckland Council and the City Centre Targeted Rate.
RNZ News
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Bookmarks with Peau Halapua
Today on Bookmarks Jesse is joined by violinist and musical director Peau Halapua, who has arranged and performed in acclaimed theatre shows, including 'Émilie' at Auckland's Q Theatre, and played with the likes of L.A.B., Tami Neilson, and Sol3Mio. Peau is currently working on a new show for tamariki, Taniwha , which is on at the Silo Theatre during the upcoming school holidays. Peau speaks to Jesse. Violinist and musical director Peau Halapua. Photo: Ali Nicoll van Leeuwen Her song choices today include: Itzhak Perlman plays Fritz Kreisler: Caprice Viennois opus 2 - Itzhak Perlman Schubert: Schwanengesang, D. 957, 4. Ständchen In D Minor - Anne-Sophie Mutter Over the Rainbow - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole Waves - TEEKS
