Festival of New Theatre
Lynn Freeman and Adam Burgess
Young & Hungry
Festival of New Theatre
Bats Theatre
Reviewed by Lynn Freeman and Adam Burgess
EVEN those of us who were relatively young when Young & Hungry started are getting on, but still this annual festival delights and often surprises. There are recurrent themes too, especially ‘coming of age’ stories where friendships are tested and the young actors experience painful life lessons. That’s true this year too.
For Johnny is firmly in the ‘coming of age’ category, and it works an absolute treat, thanks to a clever time-traveling script by Whiti Hereaka, slick direction by Eleanor Bishop, and great performances by the young cast. You can see the actors relate to both the situation they are put in and the language they are given to express the hopes, dreams, disappointments and grief of their characters. The Johnny of the title is a charismatic young lothario who is the natural leader of his group of childhood friends, who adore and forgive him. We met his friends at the start of the play mourning his sudden death and gradually we learn more about them and him as the play moves between the past and present.
Hearts Encoded was more of a mystery, I was enlightened by Adam who has frequented the virtual worlds of multi player games, then it clicked into place. He is the target market, so that’s all good. First I found the avatars annoying, then intriguing, and by the end had huge respect for writer Aaron Alexander for trying something so completely different. Rachel Lenart was more than up to the challenges of creating a virtual place with characters representing real people in the ‘meat world’. Her cast made us care for them, living in this crazy convergence of fact and fiction.
Disorder jumps on the zombie bandwagon, with Thomas Sainsbury turning Wellington into a hellhole where a virus rapidly turns the fine people of this fair city into flesh gorging mindless living dead. I expected more from Sainsbury. Disorder rapidly becomes dull and predictable, peopled with stereotypes and bringing nothing new to the genre. The actors did their best with the material and the band of zombies really worked up a sweat but despite their and director Robin Kerr’s best efforts, it was to no avail.
Festival of New Theatre
Bats Theatre
Reviewed by Lynn Freeman and Adam Burgess
EVEN those of us who were relatively young when Young & Hungry started are getting on, but still this annual festival delights and often surprises. There are recurrent themes too, especially ‘coming of age’ stories where friendships are tested and the young actors experience painful life lessons. That’s true this year too.
For Johnny is firmly in the ‘coming of age’ category, and it works an absolute treat, thanks to a clever time-traveling script by Whiti Hereaka, slick direction by Eleanor Bishop, and great performances by the young cast. You can see the actors relate to both the situation they are put in and the language they are given to express the hopes, dreams, disappointments and grief of their characters. The Johnny of the title is a charismatic young lothario who is the natural leader of his group of childhood friends, who adore and forgive him. We met his friends at the start of the play mourning his sudden death and gradually we learn more about them and him as the play moves between the past and present.
Hearts Encoded was more of a mystery, I was enlightened by Adam who has frequented the virtual worlds of multi player games, then it clicked into place. He is the target market, so that’s all good. First I found the avatars annoying, then intriguing, and by the end had huge respect for writer Aaron Alexander for trying something so completely different. Rachel Lenart was more than up to the challenges of creating a virtual place with characters representing real people in the ‘meat world’. Her cast made us care for them, living in this crazy convergence of fact and fiction.
Disorder jumps on the zombie bandwagon, with Thomas Sainsbury turning Wellington into a hellhole where a virus rapidly turns the fine people of this fair city into flesh gorging mindless living dead. I expected more from Sainsbury. Disorder rapidly becomes dull and predictable, peopled with stereotypes and bringing nothing new to the genre. The actors did their best with the material and the band of zombies really worked up a sweat but despite their and director Robin Kerr’s best efforts, it was to no avail.
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