Critical Corner: Best of Theatre 2024

O Le Pepelo, le Gaoi, ma le Pala’ai | The Liar, The Thief and the Coward (Auckland Theatre Company, Auckland Arts Festival, I Ken So Productions at the ASB Waterfront Theatre)

As cast sizes diminish across the country, even in mainstage theatres, it’s a treat to see an out-and-out family drama that puts bodies onstage, and explores deeply specific - and therefore universal - conflict. As I wrote back in February: “O Le Pepelo is what every family drama wants to be. It does not just speak to its own very specific family dynamic, but to the forces that impede on that family, and what the tensions between those two things can say about all families, and by proxy, society. What is society made up of if not a bunch of dysfunctional families? Keni and So tell the story of this particular family with gravitas, but also with humour and specificity. Any playwright who wants to even attempt a family drama in this country should take notes.”

Scattergun: After the Death of Rūaumoko (Silo Theatre at Q Loft)

Another modern classic; it’s easy to get bored of solo shows (as one Edinburgh reviewer opined) but Scattergun is an example of what theatre can look like when time and talent meet. Ana Chaya Scotney’s play, and performance, are elevated by Silo Theatre’s production here, deservedly so. Scotney is a once-in-a-generation maker, and her tale of family, grief, loss, and how to make sense of all that mess, is something that could have only been told by her. I’ve now seen several of her shows, and this feels like the purest distillation of her; no holds barred, firing on all cylinders, every metaphor for “the perfect amount of too much” I could write. (If you want to read my essay on the show, you can do so here!).

First Trimester (at Basement Theatre)

Someone is trying to find a sperm donor, and they’re interviewing people onstage until they get one. It might sound like a simple premise for a show, but I keep coming back to First Trimester as one of the most defiantly unconventional times I’ve had in a theatre this year. While it was a genuine attempt for theatre artist Krishna Istha to find a sperm donor, it was also an interrogation of what it means to be a parent, to start a family, and do all that while being queer. Paradigm shifts are rarely this gentle, or this moving, and we’re the worse for it. (I was also literally an interviewee in this show, which I wrote up here, paywalled.)

Be Like Billy (at Te Pou Theatre)

My appreciation for this show – part cabaret, part tribute, part reckoning – has only deepened since my review of it a few months ago. From that: Perhaps the most winning thing about Be Like Billy is that it feels so thrillingly alive. As Spooner is processing his own relationship with his predecessors – more than just Billy T. James, but a long lineage of Māori performers – the audience is processing it as well. What is the cost of entertainment, for the performer, for the audience, for the culture? …  This makes it sound like a heavy show, but Spooner is carrying the show – and us – on his shoulders. As he says towards the end of it, he is having this korero so that the generations that follow him don’t have to. They don’t have to be the butts of jokes, or have to make ethical compromises with their performances. The work that Spooner is doing is weighty, but the result is joyous, and cathartic.

R&D At The End of the World: Part One (at Basement Theatre)

The copy of this show reads: “A scale model house sitting under the constant deluge of a rain machine will slowly be transformed over 4 evenings by the cast; Time, Earth, and Water.” Put this shit into my veins, please. I only managed to get to this show on the second night (unofficially, too!), at which point, the cast had demolished the house. A poignant piece of durational theatre, an ode to craftsmanship in and outside theatre, and a reminder of how impermanent all of “this” really is.

Thelma and Louise Don’t Die (at the Civic Theatre)

A tribute to Thelma and Louise that saw a car lifted into the rafters of The Civic? A defiant fist in the air to patriarchal structures and storytelling? A show with a sequence set up to a Spice Girls mashup that’s been on my “getting ready” rotation ever since? All of the above.

The latest collaboration between Julia Croft and Nisha Madhan was maybe my favourite show of the year (and yes, biased as all hell, see the disclaimer below). I’d already been a fan of it right back in its development showing a few years ago, but the show achieved a new depth onstage at the Civic Theatre. To see two of New Zealand’s best performance artists in a venue that many of us can only dream of being programmed in? That’s not punk, it’s not brat, it’s fucking awesome. Even better, seeing a show that is this intelligent, this gorgeously hopeful, and this riotously defiant

The saddest part of Thelma and Louise Don’t Die is that it feels like a love letter to an era of theatremaking in Tīmaki; the risk-takers who didn’t skimp on excellence even when the budget, or evidence of any financial gain wasn’t there, the storytellers who absolutely went there and dragged the audience along with them, and how much resilience is required to keep making. There’s a glimmer of hope in there, though; if this work by Croft and Madhan inspires anybody to follow in their path, it’ll be worth it.

ANTi (Hand Pulled Collective and Black Creatives Aotearoa)

As I write up the third solo show in this list, I wonder if it is actually easy to get bored of solo shows. I saw ANTi less than 24 hours after stepping off the plane from the other side of the world, after seeing dozens of shows with resources and support that shows here couldn’t dream of, and it stands up with some of the best of those. A queer riff on Antigone, Keagan Carr Fransch’s solo didn’t rely on her considerable talents as a performer; it was also a tremendously great piece of writing; witty, fast-paced, intelligent, and able to actually hold multiple ideas without sacrificing the narrative. I would send anybody to any of the solo shows I highlight here, but if ANTi has a return season, I would insist that anybody with any interest in writing a play, or any performance text, book a ticket. It’s that good.

Dance: Aiga, Double Goer, Bloom (at Te Pou Theatre, Q Loft and Lot23 respectively)

Apologies to the form of dance, which deserves a better critic than I, and to these excellent shows, which resemble each other in literally no way other than nominally sharing a form. However, I have to give props to these three shows. Aiga, for being a show like no other, showing what can be made when everybody’s humanity is valued, and listened to. Double Goer, for being accessible to an audience without sacrificing excellence or complexity. Bloom, for delivering the starkest, most unsettling, images I’ve seen all year.

Standouts of 2024

Tomasin Fisher-Johnson in The Tiny Show (at Rose Theatre)

One of the most delightful performances I saw this year wasn’t found on a mainstage surrounded by industry notables, but in a little North Shore theatre on a Tuesday morning amongst a bunch of single-digit-aged children. After going to Edinburgh, I will bluntly say that there’s almost nothing I wanted to see less than a clowning show aimed at children. However, Tomasin Fisher-Johnson’s performance in The Tiny Show, a simple charming romp through well known fairytales, is one I keep coming back to and chuckling. It throws off the worst of clown (most of it, sorry) and keeps the best: pure joy, zero ego, and dogged pursuit of a laugh.

Kura Forrester in Camping (Silo Theatre at Q Rangatira)

Everybody in Camping is having a great time, and there was no better comedic quartet to be found onstage this year, but if there’s one standout from the cast, it’s Kura Forrester. While the other three performers found truth in the bizarre eccentricities of a certain kind of New Zealander, Forrester dug deep to find something sad, dark, and obviously hilarious, in her character. Camping as a production never risks being real, but Forrester had one moment downstage that felt as close to the bone as any dramatic performance I’d seen this year, it’s a feat that she never lost the funny while going so real. (If anybody is doing a production of Who’s Afraid in Virginia Woolf in the next ten years, I’m dead serious that their first port of call for Martha should be Kura Forrester.)

Micky Delahunty in Interrupting Cow (A Mulled Whine Productions at Basement Studio)

It is the best kind of compliment when I say that I haven’t seen a performance like Micky Delahunty’s one in Interrupting Cow and I doubt I will again (unless Delahunty gets onstage again). Absurdism is often an excuse for a performer to lean into bad habits, or to break basic performance etiquette in the aid of searching for something that isn’t especially profound. At its best, however, it gives a performer the opportunity to be real; the world is a mess, so here’s how you respond to it. Delahunty’s version of this was thrillingly alive, real, and present (and they were matched beat for beat by their sister, Catherine).

Surblibor

I have seen exactly one minute of Survivor and it’s that clip of Mike White on the show. I have no memory of what it actually involved beyond Mike White. Despite this, I was genuinely obsessed with Surblibor, essentially a three-hour tribute to the show where various comedians play Survivor-inspired (“inspired” being a crucial word). Nothing I saw this year felt higher stakes, nothing rewarded going full commitment as much, and nothing else felt like a beautiful, chaotic, balm from the insanity of the outside world.

Īhaka Martyn in He Māori (at the Auckland Writers Festival)

This round-up is full of “if there’s one show…” levels of praise, and I’ll apologise for resorting to it again. Firstly, I’m a bit rusty and it’s a week until Christmas. Secondly, He Māori, and Īhaka Martyn’s performance in it, is worthy of it. He Māori, an extremely winning tale of Martyn’s path from confusion to comprehension to conviction, should be seen in schools. The show itself is great, but Martyn himself is the best ambassador for it; silly, serious, earnest as hell but never lost for a wink.

Frankie McNair in An Intimate Evening with Tabitha Booth

The second funniest thing I saw this year was Tabitha Booth’scigarette, growing exponentially larger with each appearance. THe first funniest thing I saw last year was Frankie McNair as Tabitha Booth. Performance as a send-up, a tribute, an embracing of the kind of diva that we don’t make anymore, and more’s the pity. Nothing about Tabitha Booth is authentic, but everything about her is stupidly real. 

Filament 11, in general, but specifically on Scattergun

I get excited when I see the names Rachel Marlow and Brad Gledhill in a programme. Having had a taste of international work this year, both in our own arts festival and internationally, I can confidently say that when Filament 11’s name is involved with a show that it’s going to look and feel of a different echelon. Scattergun didn’t look like anything else this year, or any year. Speaking as both critic and playwright, when design elevates intention, it is truly excellent. Filament 11 does it every time.

A slightly obvious disclaimer: I’m a theatremaker in this city, so the above shows and moments may and do involve a mixture of strangers, acquaintances, friends, chosen family, collaborators (past, present and future), enemies, rivals and nemeses. Such is the reality of writing criticism in pretty much any artform in New Zealand! Trust that my opinion is held honestly, and like all opinion, is subject to bias, taste and whim.

Oh, I also saw a bunch of shows in Edinburgh and London, but didn’t include those here! I did not see anything in Wellington that I didn’t make, and while I think that show was great, I maintain enough decorum as a critic not to name something I was literally involved in as “best”.

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