Latest news with #Wrest
NZ Herald
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Tama Jarman stars in Red Leap Theatre's crime thriller ‘Wrest' in Whangārei
The murder at the bus stop relates to the 'death' of the person she was before becoming a parent. The cast includes Tama Jarman, 38, who lived in Whangārei from the age of 5 until 20. After attending Whangārei Boys' High School, where he took drama, he wound up at South Seas Film and Television School in Auckland, from where his career flourished. 'I was working at Killer Prawn for a while after I left school and, after work, we'd head across the road to Bacio, which was owned by Des Wallace who'd done a bit of acting. 'I used to be a bit of a break dancer and I'd show my moves off and one day he said, 'What are you going to do Tama?' He'd gone to South Seas and had success as an actor from it and then bought the bar so I decided to give it a go – Des started it all!' Jarman has been working as a freelance actor since, with TV stints including Shortland Street and Westside, multiple ads and loads of theatre. He has been involved with Red Theatre since its inception in 2008 and undertaken many roles. In Wrest his main role is as a detective. Wrest came about when acclaimed performing artists and Kiwi mums Ella Becroft and Tor Colombus decided to combine their two worlds to create a new theatre show which explores motherhood's hidden darker side. The crime thriller is centred on a missing woman and a doppelganger with the unfolding mystery laying bare the mundane and sometimes monstrous reality of early motherhood. When the original woman mysteriously disappears, an uncanny doppelganger emerges. Stalked by detectives seeking answers, the doppelganger hunts visions of her original self, determined to rebuild. Becroft, who also directs the show, explains: 'When having a baby, women are expected to transition with ease – to transform into a completely new self that can seem at odds with who they know themselves to be. I felt like I became a stranger, a doppelganger of my child-free self. 'What we have come to accept as 'normal' birth can be deeply disturbing for many women. The transformative experience of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood doesn't match pervasive cultural narratives.' The project combines the cast and creative teams' personal experiences of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood with scientific, medical, and psychological insights to illuminate this often hidden experience. The main piece of text used as inspiration for the show was the book Matrescence by Lucy Jones. Jones, a scientific writer, has pieced together science, medicine and psychology in her book to explain what a woman experiences. From there, the team further researched processes and changes. Colombus, who is also the choreographer, says: 'In the rehearsal room for Wrest, there were moments where a parent would tell a story about the unexpected struggle of motherhood, the moments of rage, and the physical pain of it, that they had never spoken out loud before". 'There is a power to a woman sharing her authentic experience, and we hope this show will empower others to do the same.' The show encourages audiences to re-evaluate their perceptions of motherhood and to support women in their journeys. Jarman describes it as a dark and moody surreal crime thriller using devised physical theatre. 'We're given a rough story outline so we had a thread to follow. We've got a setting, now we've just got to build the story and physicalise what happens,' he explains. 'There's bones and we create the body and the flesh. For example, we might be asked to show five ways you could disappear into a portal. Then we all piece together the moments of gold amongst the many, many bad moments.' Although he returns to Whangārei often to visit family and has brought shows there in the past, he's looking forward to performing there next week. 'I'm just stoked to be doing what I do in my hometown. I'm excited to bring it up there and get some of my mates that are still there along and hopefully parents have a moment where they feel heard.' He equates Wrest with a David Lynch film and says audiences can expect excitement, tension, along with some dark moments among a well-constructed story. 'It's quite mysterious but when you do work it out, it's very satisfying so hopefully the audience has a satisfying experience.' Wrest runs from May 29-31 at 7.30pm-8.30pm in OneOneSix Bank St, followed by shows in Auckland in June. Tickets from Eventfinda.
Scotsman
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Wrest, Glasgow review: 'trudging through the motions'
Wrest feels more like a functional business plan than a heartfelt musical endeavour, writes Paul Whitelaw Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Wrest, Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow ★★ Edinburgh's Wrest are a genuinely independent grass-roots success story. They're unsigned, they've self-released three albums, they run their own promotions company, and they recently played a sold-out headline show at the Barrowlands. That's all quite impressive, but Wrest are also a risk-averse MOR guitar band who needn't ever worry about being crushed under the weight of their own inventiveness. Blatantly indebted to the sensitive anthem-sized likes of Snow Patrol, Coldplay, U2 and Frightened Rabbit, they have no ideas or personality of their own. The paucity of ambition is bewildering. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Singer-songwriter Stewart Douglas has forensically studied those bands and worked out the basic formula for writing A Big Emotional Anthem, which wouldn't really matter if he had at least one gem in his arsenal to match the undeniable phones-aloft triumph of, say, Chasing Cars or Yellow. But he hasn't. Every mid-paced song sounds exactly the same – a generic grey mass of two or three strummed chords, simple lead guitar lines, pulsing With or Without You bass, derivative vocal melodies and 'soaring' arrangements designed to surge dramatically at just the right moment. It's all so predictable. Whereas Frightened Rabbit once used this well-worn template to express complex feelings in a powerfully honest way, Wrest deal in mere Hallmark platitudes. Douglas is constantly urging us to 'keep going' in the face of adversity etc. Well-meaning sentiments, but hardly useful in the grand, challenging scheme of things. Performance-wise they're just four nondescript – and probably very nice – men trudging through the motions, their ordinariness emphasised by the surrounding beauty of this old Glasgow venue (which wasn't sold out).
