reviews – Page 2 – New Zealand Arts Review

Measure for Measure: intrigue, sex and plenty of laughs

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

Nick Milnes (Angelo), Stuart Tupp (Duke), Stephen Ellis (Escalus) and Āria Harrison-Sparke (Isabella)

Auckland Shakespeare in the Park 2024

Measure for Measure

By William Shakespeare

A Shoreside Theatre production

Pumphouse Amphitheatre

(if wet – Pumphouse Theatre)

Jan 23, 24, 26, 28, 30, Feb 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

Measure for Measure is one of the comedies that’s billed as a play for today. Peopled by a typically diverse cast, it’s hilarious and increasingly convoluted mundane day-to-day content provides context and plenty of laughs. Some of Shakespeare’s characters simply fill space but a core soon emerges and, with them, the not uncommon Shakespearean themes of intrigue, manipulation and resolution are revealed.

For openers, the rather wearisome Duke of Vienna (Stephen Tupp) decides to take an extended timeout leaving his deputy Angelo (Nick Milnes) in charge. And that’s where things get interesting because Angelo takes a more hardline view of both public morals and the law, before revealing a worldview that is essentially flawed. In particular, he is concerned about sex outside of marriage. So he sets about closing all Vienna’s brothels and heavily penalising anyone who dares fornicate privately – with the penalty being death of course.

One of the first to feel his ire is a likeable young chap called Claudio (Chis Raven) who has very few words in the playscript, but whose situation and fate quickly become something of a fulcrum for what follows. He must have been a sweet-talker in private though because he has somehow managed to impregnate his publicly mute fiancée Juliet (Alice Dibble).

However, when Claudio’s sister, the novice nun Isabella (Āria Harrison-Sparke), learns of this she is outraged and thereby hangs the nub of Shakespeare’s play. Echoing social mores that are sometimes as prevalent today as they were 400 years ago, Angelo says he’ll only do it if Isabella yields her own virginity to him. The cad!

Thus comedy becomes context, and hypocracy, truthfulness and justice are revealed as what this play is about.

Rather than a strong Duke who eventually returns from his sojourn as a Friar and comes up with a Plan B that sees Angelo’s jilted fiancée Mariana (Terri Mellender) substitute for Isabella, the key protagonist is revealed instead to be Isabella herself.

Āria Harrison-Sparke handles this with aplomb, assuredness and maturity. In particular her command of Shakespearean dialogue is of a considerable order.

Nick Milnes ties himself in knots at times as Angelo and Terri Mellender makes a delightful, if giggly, wronged fiancée. Escalus, ever the civil servant is played very straight by Stephen Ellis and the lesser character-roles provide some big laughs. Perhaps of note was Michelle Atkinson (Provost) who introduced both subtlety and nuance to her Provost.

The set is fairly stark and simple, as are the props. Of particularly ghoulish note was the severed head of not-Claudio and brought directly from his beheading and I could swear it as still dripping blood!

Eventually the good Duke shucks off his Friar mantle, resumes his Duke-ness, sentences Angelo to wed Mariana, then threatens to kill him as well. But Mariana and Isabella plead for Angelo’s life, reveal that Claudio is alive, the Duke pardons Angelo and proposes to Isabella, while Claudio and Juliet presumably live happily ever after – even if their newborn bites Claudio’s finger.

As I said, very convoluted, but also very Shakespearean.

Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
“An Angelo for Claudio, death for death.”
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure.

Unlike last year’s Shakespeare-in-the-Park season where winds blew and cheeks cracked, Shoreside Theatre is looking forward to better weather this summer. Nonetheless, the white noise created by even the gentlest breeze in the trees surrounding this outdoor venue makes it sometimes difficult for a cast to project beyond it so seating in the forwards rows is recommended. Rather surprisingly it got a tad chilly as the evening wore on and a good jacket, or even a blanket, is suggested.

This annual two-play season (although not reviewed here, the other is A Midsummer Night’s Dream) is now firmly established on the Auckland theatrical calendar in this, its 28^th season.

An Arts Festival show which has the reviewers wondering

John Daly-Peoples

Auckland Arts Festival

Scott Silven “Wonders”

March 19 – 24

One of the more intriguing acts on at the Auckland Arts Festival this year will be Scott Silven’s Wonders. The clairvoyant, mentalist, and performance artist has dedicated his career to unique form of theatrical illusionism which fascinates audiences.

He studied hypnosis in Milan at 15, gained recognition from the American illusionist David Blaine at 19, and headlined one of the United Kingdom’s most prestigious theatres at 21.

In Wonders, Silven invites the audience on a journey through his childhood memories in the lowlands of Scotland, connecting his participants with the myth and mystery of the landscapes that shaped him. This show is said to go beyond the traditional theatre experience, offering an interactive, audience led, performance that explores the power of connection through illusions.

What is extraordinary about his show is the response of reviewers who grapple with trying to explain what they have witnessed in seeing one of his shows

A Melbourne Time Out reviewer said of Silven, who talks to the audience about his early exploration of the family attic – “he also explored the corners of his own mind, and he claims that he began to discover his ability to make mental connections to the world around him in weird and wonderful ways. Interspersed in this narrative are demonstrations of Silven’s extraordinary skill as a mentalist, which involves audience members at every turn. His ability to convince that he’s reading minds – and that random audience members are able to perform similar feats under his instruction – is absolutely dazzling. The complexity of his work is spectacular, and he draws together the threads of just about every “ta-dah” moment in the final moments of the show. Even non-believers, like myself, will be blown away by the artistry.”

A Sydney reviewer was also baffled “Silven does not perform your typical brand of magic, using visual illusions and tricks to stun the audiences. Instead, he uses the power of language and of the imagination to draw the audience in, fostering magic out of the power of human connection. One by one, he brought members of the audience up and seemed to be reading their minds. In reality, a lot of the time he was actually guiding them as to what to think. That prepared monologue at the start that felt out of place was actually an ingenious way of planting motifs and ideas in the audience’s mind that they would bring back to him later. Every little bit of speech had a purpose.

Some moments felt scarcely believable. When an audience member said their prize possession as a child was a “Snoopy” dog, Silven reached under his chair and pulled out a billboard he had written earlier predicting that the prize possession of the audience member he called upon would be a “Snoopy” dog. Is this too much of a coincidence? Did he have plants in the audience? Did he have an assistant furiously typing up a billboard backstage and slipping it under the stage curtain to his chair when we weren’t watching?”

And The Guardian reviewer said of another of his shows “Silven’s use of storytelling and setting creates something genuinely magical, and it’s a joy to willingly suspend disbelief and slide into a sense of wonder not experienced since childhood.

And with that comes connection. Not the psychic kind Silven suggests, but the kind forged by a shared sense of discovery. Across the table, eyes are shining, guards are down, and there’s the odd report of goosebumps. The childhood game of Chinese whispers, further confounded by whisky, brings things to a delightfully silly finish.

I emerge still a sceptic, but certainly not a cynic.”