‘My mummy says I’m a miracle,’ lisps a pampered early-maturer near the top of this deliciously-dark family show. It is echoed by her diverse classmates and quickly becomes their mantra because, as they well know, even if you’re little you certainly can do a lot.
And they do. In fact, there are sometimes so many little people doing things in this Matilda, one can readily understand why two directors are occasionally required. Which might suggest that the principals, the subprincipals, the alternating Maggots, Worms and childrens’ choruses could easily get tangled up a bit. Not on your life. They flow as one. And that is a credit Grant Meese, Hamish Mouat and those who have supported them. The energy levels never flag and I came out feeling just a tad breathless.
Based on the splendidly grotesque Roald Dahl novel from 1988, and turned over to Tim Minchin and Dennis Kelly prior to its original West End opening in 2010, the music and the songs quickly become owned by the children, the story develops a life of its own and the whole thing becomes a fun-filled romp driven largely by Minchin’s nonsensically-wondrous lyrics as by Roald Dahl’s original.
It tells a tale of the collective power of children and how they address the perceived wrongs of the world they inhabit. Their ringleader is one Matilda Wormwood – a young girl with the gift of telekinesis. She loves reading, has an unsupportive and cringe-worthy family and ends up at a school run by the terrible Miss Trunchbull. But, with the help of teacher Miss Honey and town librarian Mrs Phelps, she and the other children overcome all the odds and triumph. Of course they do.
In the process the character of Matilda’s awful parents are stripped bare; Mrs Trunchball,the butch, granite-faced principal who used to be an Olympic hammer thrower and unleashed by George Keenan-Davies is effectively neutered; the sweet natured Miss Honey – that teacher we all love to love – provides a neat balance that demonstrates not all grownups are nasty.
As for the children themselves, they are irresistible, stomping and skipping through some marvellous choreography through both this show and through life, demonstrating that growing up is a lifelong endeavour. For kids, yes, but also for the children that we all remain at heart, this is wise, wicked, glorious fun. Both chocolate cake and the hammer throw will never be the same again.
Of special note is the choreography of Hamish Mouat who manages to sustain multiple overlapping conversations yet never loses sight of a group statement.
Falling neatly into the school holidays, the timing of his show is impeccable. It is pure, top-end family fare.
Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring which opened the NZSO’s latest concert featured music the composer originally wrote for Martha Graham’s ballet of the same name. The work has a simple narrative following aBride and Husband as they get married and celebrate with the community. The work contains various themes – faith, love and the joys of a new life.
The work is a celebration of the American West as well as an acknowledgement of the country’s past times of violence, referencing both the Civil War and World War II (the work was written in the midst of the war).
Copland used American folk music for melodies, harmonies and textures, that he had used in previous works such as Billy the Kid and Rodeo and he also included a theme and variations on the Shaker tune “Simple Gifts”.
Like those other two ballets the composer has responded to the notion of fluidity, representing the dancer’s movements.
The piece starts off with one of the great descriptions of the dawning day but with it is also the couple’s wedding day. This is described with soft chords from the strings, followed by soaring woodwinds with the flute and clarinet sketching out the storyline.
Quiet and wistful vistas and activity merge into cheery dance-like passages echoing the early American folk tunes and Conductor Gemma New responded with a little dance, caught up in these lively rhythms
The work was punctuated by dramatic use of the percussion and horns which contrasted with the lively, dancing strings.
The finale with its grand statement along with Copland’s others works added a new dimension to the idea of rural America and the West elevating them to a sophisticated and iconic level.
The second work on the programme was Lyell Cresswell’s Piano Concerto No 3 which was given its world premiere, played by Stephen De Pledge, a long-term admirer and advocate of the composer’s work.
The concerto is full of contrasts, between the instruments themselves as well as the musical colours and textures which are all bound together with innovative instrumentation.
It opened much like the Copland with a dawning with suggestions of Nature, the stillness of landscape and the sounds of the forest. This was soon followed by the aggressive orchestra which merged with De Pledge’s piano where shimmering clouds hovered over the raucous strings.
Throughout the work there were musical suggestions of observations of his environment linked to a strange, abstract realm of sound with De Pledge and the orchestra contributing a range of textures – delicate, frenzied, lush and meticulous.
The brutal sounds of the orchestra were often matched by the equally brutal sounds of the piano, orchestra and piano creating interweaving and inventive sounds. These included the pianist using the instrument as a percussion instrument, knocking on the piano keys or playing long passages of a repeated single note.
Much of the piano work was sparse but there were occasional energetic bursts of sound accompanied by the orchestra with the whispering strings at time sounding like the gentle wind in the trees or a breath slowly exhaled.
The final work in the programme was Mozart’s Symphony No 42 , The Jupiter one of his last symphonic works and one in which the composer is producing work which is at the centre of the transition of music form the classical to the Romantic…
With this work Gemma New seemed to be interested discovering nuance and depth in the composer’s work.
Even in the opening sequence which is full of drama she created contrasts so that the great melodies took on a more impressive sound with New seeing possibilities in the music that even Mozart may not have been aware of.
Her approach was obvious in the intensity of many passages, reducing some to more of a sigh while the dramatic moments featured immense surges of sounds.
The mysterious quality of the second movement featured some beautiful balance between the woodwinds and orchestra while the energetic final movement with multiple themes and intricate playing demonstrated the orchestra’s superior musicality.
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From the opening doom-laden chords through to the anguished sounds of the final moments of Rigoletto the audience was carried along by the glorious music which conjured up feelings of love, despair, anger and malevolence as we follow one mans destiny, overcome by the deceitful and immoral world he lives in.
Tyrants, and corrupt leaders have always had the ability to corrupt other people and surround themselves with equally corrupt yes men. Rigoletto takes us into that world of, deceit and amorality. It is a bleak world where the occasional flicker of light and love is quickly extinguished
The first act opens with the Duke of Mantua and his courtiers cavorting in an impressive reception room with references to La dolce Vita of the 1950’s. It is a world where the dinner suits and fabulous dresses disguise the lecherous goings on.
We also encounter Rigoletto dressed as the court jester – a mixture of Ronald McDonald and Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker as he peels off his make up surrounded by his various costumes. He is an actor who must play many parts, just as the other members of the Dukes court play out their roles.
The first act’s dramatic opening is just the start of probably one of the most mature and intelligent productions of the opera and one which kept the audience enthralled.
One of the problems I have always had with the opera is the curse with which Monterone damns Rigoletto and the duke early on. The notion that he has been cursed preys on Rigoletto mind throughout the opera and when his daughter dies in his arms, he shrieks about the curse has been fulfilled. Of course, the evil Duke still lives, so the curse has not affected him.
In fact, Rigoletto himself is the reason his daughter has been killed, Rigoletto himself is the curse and she dies because of his deceit and immorality rather than anyone else’s.
The Duke and his various courtiers are not particularly evil. They act as many men of business or politicians, using or skirting the law in an amoral fashion. It is Rigoletto who embarks on a course of revenge with the decision to hire an assassin to kill the Duke.
The courtiers and the Duke are also upfront about what they do. It is Rigoletto who presents a façade at court as well as to his daughter, withholding the truth of his relationship with the Duke and his early life even from her.
This veneer which he presents is his undoing. His pretense of an irritating, sycophantic fool at court hides a deep-seated resentment. His lack of awareness of his involvement with amoral activities as well as presenting as a cloying and over protective father is his weakness, his flaw, his curse.
James Clayton in the role of Rigoletto has to convey Rigoltto’s complex set of attributes and flaws. His character never becomes over demonstrative, there is always a sense of him holding back in his expression of love, hate, contempt. It is too easy to have Rigoletto portrayed as a twisted character who is obviously deformed physically as well as mentally and Clayton carefully avoids this.
His “Pari siama” (How alike we are) when singing of the assassin Sparafucile is haunting in its exposure of Rigoletto’s awareness of his own wretchedness, his voice catches with shuddering emotion at just the right point. Then he superbly transitions to his singing as devoted father of Gilda. This ability to capture his two personalities, the heartless and the warm showed in just a couple minutes showed a singer with able to convey deep psychological states with exquisite refinement.
Gilda (Elena Perroni and the Duke (Amitai Pati) Image Jinki Cambronero
As Gilda, Elena Perroni created a character which expressed all the conflicting emotions of a young woman exposed to the ache and desperation of love, the terror of kidnap, the embarrassment of talking to her father about her seduction and the confusion of being dragged into the adult world.
Her voice soars with emotional expression in arias such as “Care nome” (Dear name) where effervescent and passion erupt.
Amitai Pati sang gloriously as the hedonist Duke with just the right mix of bravado and self-awareness. In his role as Gilda’s lover his voice took on an elegant combination of romanticism and cynicism which helped create a fully rounded, disreputable character.
Maddalena (Sian Sharp) and Sparafucile (Jud Arthur) Image Jinki Cambronero
Jud Arthur’s Sparafucile was suitably threatening with his mundane approach to killing,. His silky voice resonated with darkness and menace, his body tense with suppressed nervous energy.
Sian Sharp was impressive as Maddalena, Sparafucile’s sister and she added a sensual dimension to the final quartet when she sings with the Duke, Rigoletto and Gilda in a profound “Bella figlia” (Lovely woman).
The set designs by Michael Yeargan are impressive from the lavish palace interior to the brilliantly detailed house/ bar interior constructed on a revolving stage which helps concentrate the action.
This is a restaging of the work originally directed by Elijah Moshinsky and rehearsed by Shane Placentino who has done a splendid job in realizing the work.
As ever the New Zealand Opera Chorus was in great form and conductor James Judd deftly led the Auckland Philharmonia ensuring that the music added to the overall dramatic effect, dominating when it needed to but always allowing the singers the space to let their voices shine.
With this production director, designers, soloists chorus and musicians have brought together a seamless tale of brilliantly rounded characters with vivid emotions and contemporary relevance.
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Boys & Girls starts of as a very simple play with a clear narrative, some well-honed quips and some nicely sketched characters. All this is deftly presented by Beatriz Romilly as the sole unnamed central character who we meet standing in a queue at Naples airport where she tells of her misspent youth and her as drunk / druggy / slaggy phase imbibing drinks, drugs and a bit of cocaine. She gives us her youthful world-weary evaluation of a few European hot spots – Paris is a dump – Leeds with wider streets. Italians are fucked up but great.
Its also in this queue she meets her husband who endears himself to her by putting two wanna-be models in their place. He is something of an entrepreneur, buying up old French and Italian furniture to sell in the UK.
Then its fast forward to her and the children, who do have names – Leanne and Danny. And she gets a new job. She gets to be a PA in a TV company. She is good at her job, rises through the ranks to the point she is getting Baftas.
The first half of the play is pretty bright, the sex is terrific, the children predictable, she manages to thwart a potential rival, it’s a good life.
The latter part of the play is a bit darker. His business starts to falter, she suspects another woman, they are drifting apart. Its at this point she addresses the audience, as she has done a few times before _ “I am if course, just giving you one side”. While she doesn’t tell us what the other side is she comes to the realisation that he is jealous of her rising star while his is waning. The conclusion is devastating and echoes some of the remarks she makes earlier in the play about male violence and she muses in her final lines about the way the world has been made for men should be to stop men.
As well as giving life lessons to the children the woman also imparts them to the audience in her complex role of mother, shrink and life coach.
In charting the trajectory of her marriage she has to confront the puzzle of the man she loves and Romilly is able to convey her changing emotional states from the early, witty observation to the visceral responeses she has to the final tragedy. Romilly also manages to transform the physical nature of the woman herself from a statuesque figure at the beginning to a crumpled form at the conclusion.
Romilly gives a brilliantly textured performance as she builds a portrait of the woman, transitioning from her early phase of her life to maturity with some clever vignettes as she takes on the voices of other characters.
The simple set designed by Tracy Grant Lord was a masterpiece of design – at times just a small flat wall, then a doorway, then a dark box -and was able to change the dynamins of the action while the lighting of Filament 11 added to the atmosphere.
The soundscape created by Te Aihe Butler with its sounds of the outside world as well the music of Victoria Kelly all helped create intense moods which were generally, extremely effective but occasionally it becomes unnecessarily obvious and masked the dialogue.
The monologue at close to two hours is a remarkable display of acting – subtle, comic, dramatic, unexpected and gut wrenching.
The play is acutely relevant in telling of the tragedy of lives and families ripped apart by male violence and its debilitating aftereffects on individuals and society.
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An anthology of performance art in Aotearoa New Zealand
Edited by Christopher Braddock, Ioana Gordon-Smith, Layne Waerea and Victoria Wynne-Jones
Massey University Press
Published September 2024
RRP $65.00
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
In 2014 The Walters Prize included a work by Kalisolaite ‘Uhila where the artist inhabited the Auckland Art Gallery precinct for several months, living as a homeless person – eating sleeping and communicating with visitors, staff and other destitute people. The work was intended to draw attention to the plight of the homeless.
However, going to the gallery to find the ”art” and the artist necessitated searching the art gallery, the nearby park and streets until I found him wedged into an overhang on the gallery’s roof.
This search seemed more like a game of hide and seek rather than being immersed in a social /political experience /experiment. At the time It seemed to only involve me and the artist, reflecting on an encounter.
That encounter is what can loosely be called an example of post-object art or performance art which has been evolving in New Zealand since the 1970’s.
With that encounter and many others one can see that performance art requires an audience as well as documentation as many of the events are transient.
Now an anthology/reader of performance art in New Zealand, ”Resetting the Coordinates” has been published,providing an in-depth survey of the artists and artworks in the performance area which have happened over the past fifty years.
At the core of performance art is the audience and the performer/artist, the works having a theatrical element to them in which artist often draw attention to time, space, and body,
The goal of these actions is to generate a reaction with themes which are commonly linked to life experiences of the artist themselves along with social and political criticism.
Darcell Apelu:, New Zealand Axemens Association: Womens subcommittee president 2 August 2014, documentation of performance. Courtesy Artspace, Auckland. Photo by Peter Jennings
The book records a number of the activities which occurred as described in the introduction by editor Christiopher Braddock,
“If, on 2 April 1971, you had journeyed out across the unsealed metal roads to the west coast of the Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland region of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand, venturing as far as the remote Karekare Beach, to the north of Whatipu Beach and the great Manukau Harbour and south of Piha Beach, you would have come across the mystifying scene of ten people arduously sweeping the beach with long-handled yard brooms. “
Organised by Phil Dadson and colleagues this was the first in a series of purposeless works of which Dadson said : ‘This was work for the sake of the work, no particular purpose, no rewards’ across a ‘pointless-to-sweep stretch of beach’ in ‘communion with the elements and the place’.
These activities often existed outside the confines of the mainstream contemporary art scene and were often undocumented. Many of the names included in the anthology will be recognisable because of their wide-ranging practice, others however have had lower profiles.
Central figures have been Phil Dadson, Jim Allen, Annea Lockwood, Peter Roche & Linda Buis, Andrew Drummond, Daniel Malone, Shannon Te Ao and Lonnie Hutchinson. There have also been numerous other practitioners who are included in the book.
Christopher Braddock, one of the editors says “Mainstream art history tends to prioritise static forms of art that are more commodifiable and saleable such as painting and sculpture. Anthologies often prioritise these artforms, such as Michael Dunn’s “New Zealand Painting: A Concise History| published in 2004. Furthermore, large-scale anthologies can cement these institutional prejudices, such as Hamish Keith’s The Big Picture: The History of New Zealand Art from 1642 (2007) which largely ignores performance art.”
The book underlines the fact that performance art is a distinctive part of recent art history, with its activities presenting social and political approaches which emphasises the connections between artist, audience and art critic / historian.
These events often combined elements of anarchy, humour, spirituality, repetition, the unplanned and unexpected.
There are a several chapters which examine the history and development of performance art, some which look at the aspects of woman’s art practice, the development of Māori and Pacific based works, queer performance art and performance art in post -quake Christchurch.
There are numerous photographs and records of the activities which only give a limited appreciation of the performances such as Annae Lockwood piano burning while the multiple images of Andrew Drummond’s projects give some sense of the scale of his work.
CardboardConfessional_ Audrey Baldwin, Oscar Bannan, Bridget Harris, NeilMacLeod, Annemieke Montagne, Pat Parkin, Jennifer. Katherine Shield 2016, documentation of performance for the Centre of Contemporary Art Toi Moroki programme,Ōtautahi Christchurch. Courtesy Centre of Contemporary Art Toi Moroki. Photo by Janneth Gi
Among the other projects included are the documentation project of the Christchurch “Cardboard Confessional” (2016) developed by Audrey Baldwin et al, Louise Potiki Bryant’s dance work “Te Taki o te Ua / The Sound of Rain” (2001), Jeremy Leatinu’u’s Queen Victoria (2013) where the artist contemplated statues of the queen, Juliet Batten’s Women’s Project of 1985 at Te Henga Beach and Bruce Barber’s “Mt Eden Crater Performance (1973) which was a collaboration with Solar Plexus as part of the drumming event initiated by Phil Dadson..
It is a fascinating book with lots of performances which have been rarely written about, seemingly lost to history but which tell us much about the social, political and spiritual examinations and soundings which artists have made.
The writers include Natasha Conland, Gregory Burke, Ioana Gordon-Smith, Khye Hitchcock, Audrey Baldwin, Bruce E Phillips and Heather Galbraith
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James Jin (violin), Xing Wang (piano) and Dominic Lee (cello)
Mt Eden Chamber Music Festival
Eden Arts
Mt Eden Village Centre Church
September 6 – 8
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
Now in its ninth year the Mt Eden Chamber Music Festival organised by the local community arts group, Eden Arts has presented high quality performances by some of the country’ s leading musical groups and major talent including NZ Trio and NZ Barok.
These concerts have been programmed by Simeon Broom, the Festival’s Artistic Director who is a violinist with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Cathy Manning of Eden Arts.
Its most recent concert series featured Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No 2, Dvorak’s Piano Concerto No 3, Debussy’s Sonata in G Minor for violin and Piano, Brahms’ Piano Quartet No 3 as well as a concert of works for trombone quartet including pieces by Beethoven, Bruckner, Chaulk, Webern Apon and Seroki.
The four major works on the programme all see composers responding to major crisis in their lives – personal, domestic and political, using music as a means of self-expression as well as communicating their ideas and emotions.
The Shostakovich Piano Trio and Dvorak Piano Concerto were both played by Xing Wang (piano), James Jin (violin) and Dominic Lee (cello) giving each of the works a very different tone.
The Shostakovich was written in 1944 following on from his Symphony No 7 which was his reaction to the horrors of the Second World War and the Siege of Leningrad and which was his personal expression of his resistance to fascism.
Some of these same aspects are to be found in the Piano Trio along with reference to his friend Ivan Sollertinsky who had recently died and who is credited with introducing Shostakovich to new music including the work of Mahler.
The opening, chilling tomes of the Lee’s cello were followed by the lamenting sounds of Jin’s violin and the dignified piano of Wang. The trio became more animated with the anguished conversation between the strings set against the ruthless tones of the piano. Here the strings seemed to be particularly raw expressing anger and torment.
The second movement began with a slightly more joyful tone with its dance-like melody but this soon became more excited with a harsh pizzicato sequence from the strings, soaring above the pianos more restrained sounds.
There followed a death knell, the cello paying homage to Sollertinsky with a passionate voice.
In the final section Shostakovich used a Jewish melody but the celebratory nature of the work was played as a dirge, full of an increasingly frantic distress.
The undertones of the mournful cello and the tense violin become something of a metaphor for the lost and abandoned. Here Lee took on an active performance role lifting himself out of his seat in an agitated manner.
There is also a dark and brooding element in Dvorak’s Piano Trio which may be a reflection of the composer’s grief over the recent death of his mother and the early death of three of his children.
The group displayed an understanding of the work with its subtle nuances of tone and its dramatic chiaroscuro giving the work an alternating drama, liveliness and introspection.
The opening of the work was filled with swirling eddies of sound conjuring up images of landscape that he evoked in many of his previous works. Here the , the grandeur of the vision expressed a contemplative mood.
The work was full of passage of tight precision and the trio was able to express the passion in music with some delightful passages such as the springlike opening of the second movement as well as some unexpected inflections and intricate rhythms.
The three instrument developed and expanded these early melodies creating some languorous vistas with some of the melodies beautifully expressed by Lees’s cello which led to an unexpected conclusion.
Much of the playing of the violin and cello took on an elegance which saw the two instruments interweaving in a conversation which alternated between the formal and the combative.
Simeon Broom (violin), Katherine Austin (piano), James Tennant (cello)Helen Lee (viola)
Debussy wrote the Sonata in G Minor for violin and Piano in 1917 at a time when France was grieving its losses in The Great War and at a time when the composer was aware of his imminent death,
Simeon Broom’s violin soared and floated above Katherine Austin’s piano which went from the dramatic to the lethargic, her intrusions like a scudding cloud and Broom’s violin explored some rapturous melodies.
The second movement brought some colourful and sprightly dancing melodies from Broom with some jittery playing from Austin, the instruments vying for innovation and spectacle.
Austin delivered brilliant passages of insistent piano into which Broom inserted a bird-like romanticism and then some marvellous playing involving double stopping and intricate playing.
For the Brahms Piano Quartet No 3 Austin and Broom were joined with Helen Lee (viola) and James Tennant (cello). The work is filled with drama, yearning and reflection as he was close to Robert Schumann and was shocked by his mentors attempted suicide. But he was also drawn to Schumann’s wife Clara and probably felt conflicted about that relationship.
The work also captures much of his romantic angst which can also be seen in Goethe’s “Young Werther” and the paintings of Caspar Friedrich.
The opening sobbing sounds of the instruments and the plucked sounds of the viola suggesting tears set the scene for the work with frantic strings morphing into a more contemplative mood.
There were passages where the piano alluded to joyful times as well as distant love. Then the strings erupted is waves of sound suggesting the turbulent life and mind of the young composer. There were also passionate outbursts creating an image of the lonely hero caught in a storm.
Many of the passage see Brahms creating a sense of light and dark, joy and sadness with soulful conversations between the cello and violin as well as a delicate romanticism carefully outlined by Austins piano.
The work ends with some robust playing as the instruments seemed to spiral out of control with some dynamic connections between the four players before moving onto a reflective sequence and terse conclusion.
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Simon Prast with his cast of Laura Hill, Jodie Dorday, Rachel Nash, and Darien Takle in Taking Off
Taking Off
By Roger Hall
Tadpole Theatre Company
Pumphouse Theatre, Takapuna
Directed by Simon Prast
Production Teresa Sokolich
Lighting/Sound – Gareth/Geoff Evans
With: Jodie Dorday, Laura Hill, Rachel Nash, and Darien Takle
5-15 September 2024
Review By Malcolm Calder
I’ve written about Tadpole Theatre before. This company has very clearly identified its audience demographic, has refined its offerings over time and continues to satisfy with a regular supply of quality work. Tadpole doesn’t set out to showcase ‘new work’, nor to develop ‘new audiences ‘nor to fiddle around with dynamic pricing and other new-fangled tools. Rather, it knows very clearly what its audience expects and then delivers. Roger Hall’s Taking Off is no exception.
Originally written as radio series this work, perhaps echoed later in parts of his Four Flat Whites in Italy ten years later, Taking Off recounts the experiences of four middle-aged women who, each for her own reason, decides to take off to Mother England on singular OEs. They have little in common, other than common urge, to get out and see the world and maybe revisit their own youth. There is little or no interraction between them and the four personas are carefully built through multiple snippet-by-snippet monologues that come thick and fast. One is escaping a husband she finds boring and is out for a good time, another has discovered her husband is having an affair, a third is by nature compassionate and has faithfully tended her own husband prior to his death, while the fourth has been made redundant after a long career in the public service.
Rather surprisingly each seems intent on journalising her experience although, as Hall generously pointed out to the opening night audience, one of his impulses in writing Taking Off came from a friend who presented him with her own personalised diaries back in the day.
Simon Prast has gathered a highly accomplished cast to wrap around Hall’s script and it would be unfair to single any one out from the rest. They never interact with each other and the balance is pretty much right. Each is a character that the audience knows well. Laura Hill is the would-be novelist Ruth who probably lurks deep within each of us. Rachel Nash plumbs more than a few emotional depths as Noeline and Darien Takle gives us an impishly delightful Jean that we can easily forgive for collecting tea towels. Party girl Frankie made me cringe a bit but that probably says more about me and is more a credit to Jodie Dorday and an audience who loved and readily forgave her.
Arguably Taking Off perhaps had a little more currency when written 20 years ago but it still works today. The result is an interesting play, that may seem a tiny bit dated in parts, but only minimally so. I found the first act a little long and a couple of the monologues could have been lopped off. Contrapuntally eventual resolution for each of the four seemed a little too neat, and came perhaps too quickly. After all that is what an OE is all about.
Today the OE is probably even more cliched part of the kiwi life-experience and has become part of our social history. It certainly resonated well with Tadpole’s boomer-based audience at the Pumphouse who related to it very well indeed. So, if you are after a light-hearted night out with plenty of laughs and maybe a shred of nostalgia, Taking Off comes highly recommended.
Michael Hurst (Arthur) and Jennifer Ward-Lealand (Jane) Image; Megan Goldsman
In Other Word by Mathew Seager
Figment Productions
Q Theatre
Until September 15
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
“In Other Words” is a play about Alzheimer’s. It isn’t so much a drama about the disease, it’s more of a documentary, a slice of the lives of Jane and Arthur as Arthur is affected by the disease. There are no great philosophical questions, no moral dilemmas or exposure of human weakness or corruption.
It’s a warning play and an educational play which should be funded by the Health Department in much the same way as ads about the dangers of smoking or alcohol.
We first encounter Jane and Arthur in their youth where we learn of their chance encounter with a spilt glass of red wine, their love of Frank Sinatra and of dancing. That’s as much of a back story we are offered.
Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Michael Hurst take us into the world of Jane and Arthur as they both navigate Arthurs slow development of Alzheimer’s from the initial fog of slight memory loss to the painful realisation of the disease and its impact on their lives.
The play tracks through the stages of the disease – trouble with planning and organising, losing items, forgetting names, mood swings, inability to choose clothes, wandering or getting lost, seeing fictional people and becoming suspicious or delusional.
In tracing the downward spiral there are moments of comedy and crises, there are also times of explanation and self-reflection as both actors break though the fourth wall, to talk to the audience, acting as commentators on their lives and the disease.
For the play to be effective it needs actors of an exceptional quality. Ward-Lealand and Hurst have those. They create characters who can make subtle shifts of facial expression, gestures and voice. Hurst convincingly ages but also conveys his frustration, confusion and anger
Ward-Lealand captures Jane’s own frustration, stoicism, and despair and the perplexing love which the partner/carer expresses for their lost partner which is brilliantly conveyed in her closing speech where thoughts of murder and love collide.
A major element in the play is Frank Sinatra and his song “Fly me to the Moon” which has the lines “in other word hold my hand. In other word baby kiss me”. It’s the couples theme song which they first dance to, the song which bonds them, pacifies Arthur and ends the play.
The writer Mathew Seagar says that having worked in a dementia care home, he saw the impact of music. “ Some residents who seemed cognitively unaware, distressed, and unable to communicate would stand and sing every word to a song they recognised from earlier in their life. The resulting transformation in their mood or ability to remember was often astounding, and we could see the potential of music in keeping those living with dementia connected to themselves and the world around them.”
Hurst and ward -Lealand along with Callum Brodie are credited as co-directors with Brodie also acting as producer. They have carefully crafted a moving performance which speaks to the problems of Alzheimer’s – the Secret Killer.
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When the New Zealand exhibition “Headlands” showed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney in 1992 the catalogue cover featured a strange photograph of men cavorting on some telegraph poles. The photograph was being used as a visual metaphor for the notion of New Zealand art taking risks and being adventurous. The photographer of the work was Leslie Adkin but none of his work was included in the exhibition itself.
Leslie Adkin (1888–1964) was a Levin farmer who had an interest in many other fields who used photography to document these various interests as well as his farming activities and family life. His photographs taken between 1900 and the 1950’s form a remarkable collection now in the Te Papa photographic collection.
A new book on Adkin by Athol McCredie, the curator of Photography at Te Papa documents his life highlighting his photographic career and making his collection of photographic work more widely available.
Salt winds keen (1912)
The 150 images in the book and McCredie’s text gives insights into the varied elements of Adkin’s life, including many photographs of his wife Maud, captured over the years in a range of intimate and engaging images. His documentation of his family varies from the formal portraits to the informal, capturing the wide range of activities they engaged in, and we see the children growing up, the family at work and at play which provides a unique visual record of a family.
He also recorded images of men at work on the farm along with images taken of the Mangahoa hydro-electric scheme which was close to his farm.
For Adkin the camera became an intimate part of his life, enabling him to create a visual diary as well as a means of commenting on and contemplating his daily life.
Diver J Feldt and crew, Mangahoa hydro-electric scheme (1923)
His images range from the banal to the dramatic as well as the eccentric. He seems to have had an intuitive grasp of what constitutes a good photograph and was able to frame his subjects, juxtapose figures was aware of contrasts of light and form.
Like the unusual image from the Headlands catalogue he seems to have had his own sense of what we would call “art photography” with his often low angle shots, quirky poses and an eye for visual humour.
McCredie regards Adkin as more than a talented amateur, saying “More comparable photographs were taken in Adkin’s own time, but none of their creators produced anything like such a large and consistent body of work as his. Adkin really applied himself to everything he did, including to his photography”.
McCredie also notes the Adkins took man y of his outdoor images under difficult conditions/ “He was using glass plates up until about 1930. They were inserted into the camera within double-sided wooden plate holders. All that glass and wood was both heavy and bulky and he only got twelve shots from his six plate holders before he had to reload them in a darkroom. On his 1911 crossing of the Tararua Range his camera gear weighed over seven kilograms. He shot a total of twenty-two photographs on this trip, so he obviously took along extra plates that he reloaded in a light-proof bag or under a blanket at night.”
Adkin s images offer a visual diary and commentary on transport, fashion, domestic interiors, family gatherings and farming practice which provide another perspective of life in the early twentieth century New Zealand.
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The New Zealand String Quartet’s “Soundscape 2” concert at Pah Homestead covered a period of just over two hundred years and featured work by Haydn, Janacek, Shostakovich and Leonie Holmes. It was a thrilling concert which showed the groups finely honed technical abilities along with an intelligent and sympathetic approach to the music.
Haydn’s String Quartet Op 71 was one of the first of his quartet which were played in public as opposed to the more intimate court setting of most of his previous works. This probably needed a new approach which can be heard in the opening dramatic chords of the four players which is a grand piece of musical theatricality.
The work featured some furious bowing from Helene Pohl leading the group through Haydn’s elegant and ingenious musical passages which the players effortlessly resolved.
The group displayed a musical unity each player aware of the other, the sense of connection bonding particularly evident in the second movement where the melody slides from one instrument to the other in a joyous conversation.
While the work has many vibrant melodies there was an occasional undertone conveyed by Rolf Gjelsten’s cello suggesting another dimension beneath the filigree of the other strings.
The dance like third movement with its gypsy-like sounds saw Peter Clark’s feverish violin butting up against the bucolic tone of the cello in a fine display.
The final movement was full of graceful playing ranging from delicate whispers to dramatic flourishes along with some well-judged pauses as they raced to the hectic climax.
The work of Leos Janacek has often addressed issues of human predicament such as his String Quartet No 11 or “Intimate Letters” which is musical representation of the hundreds of love letters he sent to Kamila Stösslová which were not reciprocated.
This representation of a tortured mind was also the basis of his Quartet No 1, The Kreutzer sonata which is based on a Tolstoy short story of a man whose pianist wife has a relationship with a violinist and which leads to his killing her.
Where the Hadyn work lacked an emotion element the Janacek work had both a strong narrative feel and an emotion depth
In the quartet, Janacek attempts to depict the woman’s emotional and psychological torment as she struggles with her relationships, the music providing passages of beauty and contentment alongside depictions of torment and savagery.
The players conveyed moments of passion, stilted conversation and anguished thoughts while there were references to the Beethoven sonata.
At times their playing was a mixture of the surreal and psychotic with the instruments becoming frenzied and tense in a depiction of increasing anxiety. As well as the expressive music there were the facial expressions of the players by turns soulful, grimacing and detached.
Quiet passages intermingled with savage bursting sounds depicting dilemma and frustration conveyed by the darkness of the cello and the ferocity of the violins.
There was at one point a melancholic dialogue between the first violin and cello, followed by a strained as violin and viola played close to the bridge, the discord conveying the woman’s plight.
The final movement opened with a soulful requiem like passage filled with sadness and reflection and this was followed by some rapid and aggressive playing and a savage intervention by Gillian Ansell’s viola before the ecstatic conclusion .
After interval they played Leonie Homes’s “Fragments II” which focusses on the notion of communication, linking the sounds of the instruments to that of wildlife communicating. The work references the way one musical idea suggests another. The instruments rousing themselves, slowly becoming aware of how they can communicate with each other, testing themselves as though doing warm-up exercises on their own, responding with answering calls and then showing off their fine sounds.
The final wok on the programme was the Shostakovich String Quartet No 2 written a few years after his Leningrad symphony and displays little of the heroic defiance of that huge work. The quartet includes references to Jewish and Russian folk music and is a more joyous work.
Like much of his work the quartet weaves together the composers conflicted idea about public and private music. Here he is following the party line with a support for the Russian victories in the ‘Great Patriotic War’ as well as a reflection on the struggles of the country against the Nazi onslaught.
There is a parallel ambivalence as the composer reflects on his own life, his struggles with authority and his own desire for freedom.
He weaves together celebratory melodies with conflicting and contrasting moods. There are soaring passages along with sequences of the music overcoming obstacles, all representing the struggles of Russia and himself and we hear harsh sounds of the physical and mental obstacles.
There are some sorrowful passages derived from traditional Jewish music played by Helene Pohl which were taken up by the other players and in the last movement a lonely solo by Gillian Ansell and the work finishes with passages shot through with grief amongst the sounds of celebration and wonder.
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New Zealand Arts Review 