Category: Reviews, News and Commentary

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

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.

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

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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Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Leslie Adkin: Farmer Photographer

By Athol McCredie

Te Papa Press

RRP $70.00

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.

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.

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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Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

New Zealand String Quartet

Soundscape 2

Pah Homestead

September 1

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

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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Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Vengerov & Sibelius

Auckland Philharmonia

Auckland Town Hall

August 24

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

After a rapturous ovation given to the Russian violinist Maxim Vengerov for his playing of the Sibelius Violin Concerto he thanked the audience and New Zealand for its “wonderful, mysterious weather”.

That description of “wonderful and mysterious” could have equally been applied to his stunning performance of the violin concerto with its mixture of dark energy, sublime beauty and  ever-changing dynamic forces.

From the outset of the first movement as his melancholic violin  rose about the whispering strings the audience was in his thrall and with his increasingly feversish playing he dominated the orchestra. His was a spectacular example of a violinist fully understanding the music and he was able to convey the emotions and yearnings imbedded in the piece.

Often Vengerov seemed to be taking his cue from the orchestra while at other times he seemed to be playing independently, rising above the orchestra, and then he would allow its forces to overwhelm him, his body and violin buffeted by the orchestra.

He played with an intensity and anguish in response  to the tormenting sounds of the orchestra which was conveyed by his rapid playing and his skilful techniques such as  vigorously  playing two strings at once.

At the close of the first movement, he distanced himself frpm the orchestra as though  playing in a reverie before  bursting out with a frenzied, dance-like sequence.

The tension and angst of the first movement was followed by a  transcendental  slow movement filled with an electrifying urgency. He delivered a sinuous sound, with rapid bowing  which slowly unfolded into a romantic sequence. Here the orchestra seemed to taunt him with dramatic waves of sound before violinist and orchestra  shared some exquisitely intertwined music.

In the third movement Vengerov’s frenetic playing rose above the tempestuous sounds of the orchestra and timpani and there was a fascinating interplay between violinist and orchestra where he produced thrilling high notes as they joined in the fast-paced race to the finish.

Much of the concerto sees the violinist buffeted by the orchestra, the single musician resisting the domination of the surging power of the orchestra. This is a musical representation of the oppression felt by many Finns of the Russian occupiers, denying them a voice.

This struggle of the Finns against the Russian occupiers  featured in two of the other works on the programme – “En Saga” of 1892/1902) and Finlandia (1900). These two works book-ended the concert, both featuring   rousing and turbulent music, a covert protest against the Russian Empire.

 “En Saga” opened with shimmering strings suggesting water and scudding clouds along with the woodwinds suggesting forests while the  brushed cymbals  hinted as  a landscape in peril.

The work tells of the sounds and narrative of a Norse saga but also the saga of more recent times.

In order to avoid Russian censorship Finlandia was  performed under alternative names at such as “Happy Feelings” and “A Scandinavian Choral March”…

The work opened with the  menacing sounds of blaring horns  and growling timpani, followed by a  gentler sequence featuring strings and woodwinds which conjure up images of landscape, in a hymn to Finland’s history and myths.

The work also heralds the idea of a new Finland with  sprightly music full of  new colours and textures.  There was also a sense of despair or resignation conveyed by flute and woodwinds as well as a riotous Wagnerian assertion before closing off with a soulful clarinet – an image of the composer alone in the landscape.

The middle part of the work is  slow and uplifting strings, woodwinds, brass all playing together in a celebration of country and beauty with some  obsessive playing.

The composers  interest in capturing his own and his country’s feelings in these works show how an idea can inspire a composer and how a musical idea can inspire a nation.

The concert also featured the composers Symphony No 6 which was composed in 1923 after Finland gained its independence for the first time in over 500 years. The work does not have the same angst as many of the  composer’s previous works. There is a more cheerful and celebratory tone with some beautifully sustained  music full of life and pleasure although there were also underlying darker element.

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

Women: Flight of Time

Curated by Julia Waite

And

Women: Flight of Time

Published by Auckland Art Gallery

Edited by Julia Waite

RRP $65.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Women: Flight of Time is a new exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery which highlights the place of women artists in shaping the development of modern art in New Zealand.

Spanning the period from 1920 to 1970, the exhibition features more than 80 paintings, prints, sculptures and textiles from public and private collections showing major works alongside works which have not previously been exhibited, revealing connections between artists and exploring themes and ideas which show the depth of women’s artistic achievements.

Auckland Art Gallery Director Kirsten Lacy says, “The Gallery is committed to ensuring that women artists take their due place in the history of modern art and that the contexts in which they produced are made visible. The women celebrated in Modern Women: Flight of Time are pioneering artists who boldly seized control of their own representation, leaving an indelible mark on New Zealand.”

Included in the exhibition are major work such as Rita Angus’ “Portrait of Betty Curnow” (1942), Frances Hodgkins’  “Self Portrait: Still Life: (1936) and Lois White’s “War Makers of 1937.

There are also artists whose careers have only recently been given more attention such as Colin McCahon’s wife Anne Hamblett and Pauline Yearbury, the first Māori woman to  graduate from Elam in 1946.

The exhibition has been an opportunity for the gallery to include  international female artists held in New Zealand collections. So, there are works such as “The Marriage at Cana” by the English neo-romantic artist Winifred Knights and works by  the  Russian modernist, Natalia Goncharova and British sculptor Barbara Hepworth.

Exhibited with the major works of Frances Hodgkins’   there are also some of her exceptional textile designs from the 1920’s. There are several other textile works in the show including the large curtails made for the Auckland Art Gallery in 1958  by Ilse von Randow who had previously woven work in collaborated with Colin McCahon.

Within the exhibition there is a mini exhibition of work by June Black featuring paintings, sculptures and graphic work . She was an early feminist who exhibited nationally and internationally in the 1950s and 1960s  Her figurative work reflect her  interest in existentialism, surrealism and the theatre of the absurd.

There are some treasures to be found in the show notably  a few small works by Flora Scales who has often been mentioned as the artist who provided Toss Woollaston with the impetus to pursue new ideas.

These small works spanning the1930’s through to the 1970’s are works painted in France, the UK and New Zealand. Her “Port of Mousehole at Sunset” is an extraordinary work part post-impressionist work and modern blurred imagery.

The range of work includes an exclusive collaboration with Karen Walker, introducing a collection of three silk scarves featuring artworks from the Gallery’s collection: Adele Younghusband’s Rehearsal (1938), Eileen Mayo’s Turkish Bath (circa 1930) and Teuana Tibbo’s Vase of Flowers (circa 1965).

The artists featured in this exhibition are: Eileen Agar, Rita Angus, Mina Arndt, Tanya Ashken, June Black, Jenny Campbell, Alison Duff, Elizabeth Ellis, Jacqueline Fahey, Ivy Fife, Natalia Goncharova, Anne Hamblett, Rhona Haszard, Barbara Hepworth, Avis Higgs, Frances Hodgkins, Julia Holderness (Florence Weir), Laura Knight, Winifred Knights, Mere Harrison Lodge, Doris Lusk, Molly Macalister, Ngaio Marsh, Kāterina Mataira, Eileen Mayo, Juliet Peter, Margot Philips, Ilse von Randow, Anne Estelle Rice, Kittie Roberts, Flora Scales, Maud Sherwood, May Smith, Olivia Spencer Bower, Helen Stewart, Teuane Tibbo, A Lois White, Pauline Yearbury, Adele Younghusband, and Beth Zanders.

Women: Flight of Time

Published by Auckland Art Gallery

Edited by Julia Waite

RRP $65.00

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated book, Modern Women: Flight of Time, which offers a deeper exploration of the featured artists and profiles additional artists.

The exhibition is divided into three thematic areas – Stage , Mask and Setting but this is not all the apparent when viewing the show. The book however makes these three areas much more obvious.

The works under Stage is of interiors, individual and objects within settings with artists such as Lois White, Eileen Mayo and Tanya Ashken. The Adele Younghusband works focus on both domestic and industrial  activities with her “Girl Ironing” as well as “Log Haulers”.

The works under the heading of Mask are mainly  of portraits with artists  Mina Arndt, Maud Sherwood and May Smith  The iconic “Portrait of Betty Curnow by Rita Angus is featured along with the “Double Portrait of Frances Hodgkins.

The paintings in “Settings”  are predominantly landscape and include work by  Rhona Haszard, Jaqueline Fahey and Ivy Fife. Here there are also the  sparse landscapes of Margot Phillips such as her “The Lighthouse”.

In her introduction Julia Waite provides perceptive insights into the ways the female artists worked within their various genres. She explores the various dimensions of these artists lives, their family and domestic connections, their development of skills through art school, teachers and other influences as well as their experiments and experiences both in New Zealand and abroad.,

The book also provides valuable information about the careers of these women artists as in the case of Katerina Mataira who was one of the few women who was part of Gordon Tovey’s innovative art programme in North land  which had also included artists such as Ralph Hotere. There are also essays on other lesser-known Māori artists such as Pauline Yearbury and Mere Harrison-Lodge.

With over 100 illustrations and fifty essays on women artists the books not only provides a history of development of the art by women  in the middle of the twentieth century but also an insight into the careers and dedication of these artists.

The essays also reveal the problems faced by many women artists whose careers were often interrupted or curtailed by political, social or domestic issues.

The lack of recognition led to many of these women not being included in exhibitions and publications and omitted from the canon of New Zealand art.

The book includes  writing from various experts including Jill Trevelyan, Sophie Matthiesson, Linda Tyler, Robyn Notman, Joanne Drayton, Kirsty Baker, Leonard Bell. Felicity Milburn, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Nathan Pōhio.