First up in Circa Theatre’s 50^th anniversary programme, this production of Tennessee Williams’ autobiographical memory play is a brave contemporary adaptation. It retains the feel of 1930s St. Louis and revels in Williams’ lush language, while pushing the themes into a current context and drawing the most from the play’s dark humour.

Amanda Wingfield (Hera Dunleavy) is a faded southern belle who chose the wrong one of her many ‘Gentleman Callers’ to marry. He abandoned her and their children and is never seen but often mentioned as his actions have thrust the family into penury, despite Amanda’s desire for her children to have the same comforts she once enjoyed. The story is told through the eyes of her son Tom (Simon Leary) who struggles with a dead-end job to feed his family while scribbling poetry, escaping into movies and booze, and dreaming of adventure. Her other child, Laura (Ashley Harnett), is withdrawn and fragile. In this interpretation, she is likely on the autism spectrum with anxiety and self-enforced social isolation arising from mental and emotional challenges rather than the purely physical one scripted. The arranged Gentleman Caller is Tom’s workmate (Jackson Burling) who Amanda hopes will woo her daughter.

The cast is excellent, all enjoying the beautiful writing and Williams’ careful character creation while giving their personas fresh life. Newcomer Harnett is especially engaging. She has far fewer lines than the other actors and her ability to express the complexities of Laura’s character through action and expression is a joy to watch. An unscripted and joyous moment in the second half that cleverly covers Amanda’s tricky costume change is a sublime moment of directorial creativity (Colin McColl) and acting brilliance.

Tony Rabbit’s stark white set reinvents the cramped Wingfield apartment and works well with his subtle lighting design. John Gibson’s sound design weaves in Annea Lockwood’s stunning music drawn from natural infra and ultrasound to underscore the emotional weight of the play.

Don’t miss this sensitive reworking of a gorgeous classic.

If you were to hire an actor to play someone in your life, who would you ask them to play? A friend you fell out with? A grandparent you never got to meet? Someone you can’t say what you want to? What moment would you want to recreate or make real if you had the chance?

Rental Family plays with this concept by diving headfirst into the world of Japanese professional stand-in services. A service utterly foreign in our Western world, the industry has been around since the 1990s in Japan. As the 2025 dramedy explains, it’s an enterprise that sells emotions. In a culture where there are strict codes, their services provide alternatives.

“We play roles in clients’ lives. Parents, siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends, best friends,” Rental Family business owner Shinji Tada (Takehiro Hira) says. “And help them connect to what’s missing.”

In director Hikari’s film, Phillip Vanderploeg (Brendan Fraser) lands himself a job quite by accident as the “token white guy” at Tada’s business. The struggling actor who has only booked small roles since his claim to fame as a superhero fighting gingivitis in a toothpaste commercial will now play very real roles in people’s lives. A husband at a wedding, a friend to a famous ageing actor (played exceptionally by Akira Emoto), and a father to young Mia (Shannon Gorman). What Phillip doesn’t realise is that as he forms genuine bonds with these people, the lines between performance and reality will begin to blur.

Fraser delivers an exceptionally sparkling performance, filling each scene with tender yet concentrated emotion. Each movement is intentional yet utterly natural. Mari Yamamoto too is magnetic as Phillip’s coworker Aiko and Gorman offers sensitivity and intent beyond her years.

With postcard-worthy cinematography from Takuro Ishizaka and production design by Norihiro Isoda and Masako Takayama that beautifully balances the sterility of public spaces and the rich personality of private ones, Rental Family is exquisitely crafted. Where it shines most, however, is in Hikari and Stephen Blahut’s screenplay, which offers such thoughtfully woven dialogue that it feels like you’re watching a poem unfold in real time that quietly whittles away at the moral complexities of the service to reveal the beauty of human connection.

Joyce DiDonato is a mezzo-soprano from Kansas with a sublime voice applauded in concert halls and operatic stages across the world, and she is a rockstar – there’s no doubt about it. 

With her incredible voice and stunning musicianship, she knows exactly how to work to raise the emotion, and then raise it again, exercising her power, technique, control, and perfectly placed gestures and body language. DiDonato has found the true sweet spot where her voice sounds deeply luxurious and effortless.

Of the six songs in Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été, the first is about young love and innocence, moving through loss, grief, and longing to close with a sense of renewal in the sixth and final song. The third, Sur les lagunes: Lamento, was exquisite. Set in a minor key, DiDonato lifted it from melancholy to a superb and powerful expression of grief and sorrow. Her cry in the final lines, “How bitter is my fate! Ah! Without love to sail on the sea!” was heart-wrenching.

DiDonato commanded the stage with her presence but without ego, went on to dazzle us with her talent, and, after three encores and warm words of praise for New Zealand, utterly charmed a nearly full house in the Michael Fowler Centre.

The second half was as monumental as the first. Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony is his finest and possibly the gold standard of romantic orchestral music. Opening strongly, it felt as though all the emotion and energy the NZSO had been holding back in support of the first half had come rushing through. Gemma New harnessed this and brought it into wonderful balance. New made superb connections between her players and the score. We were sure we were hearing a performance by the whole, and certainly one greater than the sum of its parts.

Superior Donuts arrives at the Gryphon Theatre with warmth, wit, and a surprising emotional punch. Tracy Letts’ script centres on the unlikely friendship between Arthur (Allan Burne), the weary owner of a rundown Chicago donut shop, and Franco (McKay Findlay), the young, energetic employee who storms into Arthur’s stagnant world with ideas, ambition, and a stubborn refusal to let the shop, or Arthur, stay stuck in the past. Their evolving connection is punctuated by Arthur’s quiet monologues, in which he slowly, hesitantly reveals the regrets and wounds that still haunt him.

The production design cleverly supports this dynamic. The donut shop set (design by Lucy Sinogeikas) is pulled forward on the Gryphon stage, creating an inviting, almost nostalgic intimacy while leaving enough space to glimpse the Chicago street beyond through the shop window. It feels lived-in, warm, and grounded. The small bell that chimes whenever someone enters or exits proves an unexpectedly charming detail, subtly reinforcing the rhythm of daily life in the shop.

There’s an easy humour throughout, particularly in the miscommunications between characters from different backgrounds. The play’s cultural collisions are handled with lightness, allowing the comedy to emerge naturally.

The cast inhabit their roles with infectious delight. Findlay’s Franco is all authenticity and vibrancy, an immediately compelling presence who lights up the stage and makes it impossible not to root for him. Opposite him, Arthur’s tentative, awkward courtship with local policewoman Randy (Sarah Dickson Johansen) provides some of the production’s sweetest moments, with the actors’ clumsy, halting exchanges creating tenderness.

At times, accents and some mumbled delivery cause key lines to blur, and occasionally actors seem to play moments inward rather than responding fully to each other. I am certain that throughout the season, the connection will grow and help the emotional beats land with greater impact.

The climax of the plot is an excellently executed fight scene. Sharply choreographed (fight direction by Janet Noble) and enhanced by bold, clipped lighting blackouts (lighting design by Emma Bell), the tension and believability of the blows is the best I have seen on stage.

This Stagecraft Theatre production captures the heart of Superior Donuts with warmth and humour, offering a charming, hopeful, bittersweet night at the theatre.

Where the voices of many women were silenced throughout history, Gloria! sings their stories from the rooftops. Screening as part of the 10^th Italian Film Festival, the subtitled film begins in 1800 with the rhythms of everyday life in Venice’s Sant Ignazio College, a religious institution for girls overseen by stern priest Perlina (Paolo Rossi). Mute Teresa (Galatéa Bellugi) is at the centre of it all, a powerless servant girl trapped in a hostile environment who yearns to be the conductor of her own world. Longing to be a part of the all-women orphanage orchestra, she arranges the sounds that accompany her daily duties into drumlines and choruses. When Perlina becomes distracted by preparations for the arrival of the newly enthroned Pope, Teresa and a quartet of students begin secretly gathering each night to take turns on the piano they find hidden in the cellar, their clandestine sessions revealing hidden truths, giving birth to new compositions, and setting the girls on a new path towards autonomy.

Celebrating the lives of the many Italian women written out of the margins of music history, Gloria! speaks to anyone who has felt restrained, underestimated, and silenced. Teresa and her newfound companions Lucia (Carlotta Gamba), Bettina (Veronica Lucchesi), Marietta (Maria Vittoria Dallasta), and Prudenza (Sara Mafodda) fizz with a chemistry rivalling even the most practised quintet. Each a powerful presence in her own right, together they capture the magic of girlhood in a way that is both tender and tenacious.

Cinematographer Gianluca Palma and production designers Susanna Abenavoli and Luca Servino juxtapose shadows with highlights, giving the midnight corners more brilliance and comfort than the stark, gleaming halls of the daylight-flooded college. Director Margherita Vicario and Anita Rivaroli’s intentionally anachronistic script is sharp and scintillating, the story humming along adagio, accelerando into a crescendo that resounds with relief, vindication, and freedom.

It would be hard not to smile by the time Gloria! reaches its final note. The music that flows forth from Margherita Vicario’s directorial debut is not the dirge of a long-suppressed song but a joyous, revolutionary riot that dares viewers to shout along in solidarity.

Not Christmas, But Guy Fawkes is the other half of Circa’s tribute to the solo work of Bruce Mason running in an alternating season called Every Kind of Weather. Having been blown away by The End of the Golden Weather earlier in the week, I was intrigued to see this lesser-known piece that also features some biographical content gleaned from an interview with Mason and the foreword to a publication.

Having enjoyed the gorgeous production design (Jane Hakaraia and Sean Lynch) of The End of the Golden Weather, I was pleased to see the same set, sympathetic sound design (Paul McLaney), and lush lighting employed in this work. Subtle change came with a different and more deluxe chair, pages of script strewn round the edge of the acting area, and performer Stephen Lovatt’s outfit. He’d swapped a linen shirt, cotton trousers, and bare feet for a 1950s combo of button-up polo shirt, patterned slacks, argyle socks, and brown leather shoes to recreate the delightful character of Mason himself, who bookended the show.

Lovatt’s performance and Shane Bosher’s direction were even more engaging in this piece, the Mason-scripted part of which mostly involves an 11-year-old’s relationship with a school bully, the ugly and intimidating Fergus ‘Ginger’ Finucane. Lovatt’s character-flipping skills are brilliant here with small changes in facial expression, voice, and posture being all that’s needed in the intimate venue of Circa Two to tell us who is speaking. His characterisation of Mason is equally expert, bringing to expressive life someone who knew he was an artist from the age of eight and described himself as “temperamentally, an overreacher”. Bosher’s delicate direction is especially effective in the final section of the piece as Lovatt simply sits in the chair directly facing the audience and is utterly engrossing.

I didn’t think it would be possible to top the first half of Every Kind of Weather. However, I was one of the many audience members on my feet at the end of this one. Just wow.

Victoria Kelly’s Requiem opens the evening with music that feels suspended between worlds; ethereal, melancholic, and at times sublime. Each movement shares a similar contour, yet this sameness becomes a strength, feeding into the meditative atmosphere of a ritual or service. The text, drawn from five iconic Aotearoa poets, evokes vast internal and external landscapes, and moments where the language emerges clearly are deeply affecting.

Alexander Lewis ventures beyond his usual range, producing passages with a strange, sob-like fragility and, at other times, haunting strength. These moments are compelling, even if occasional raspy or overly quiet phrases suggest the challenge of the part. When the material sits comfortably, his expressiveness shines. Barbara Paterson has complete control of her soprano lines, and this precision, which feels like it could at any moment overbrim with grief, gives the work an avant-garde edge. The orchestra and chorus seem to flow out of her, extensions of her performance. The Tudor Consort excels in this spacious score; Kelly’s writing leaves air around the notes, allowing this renowned a cappella ensemble to resonate fully.

This concert closes Orchestra Wellington’s ambitious season-long tribute to Shostakovich. Pairing Requiem with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 is a stroke of programming genius. This is the most familiar Shostakovich we’ve heard this season, but Kelly’s work casts it in a new light. The requiem’s ‘in memoriam’ quality primes us to hear the symphony as a tribute; to Shostakovich, and to endurance and survival. Our orchestra has spent a year immersed in Shostakovich’s works, and this pays off tonight: their playing is assured, and they navigate the tonal and emotional dexterity of the work brilliantly.

The iconic final movement is transfixing; a groundswell of brass and percussion driving toward tainted, devastating triumph. It is music wound tight, almost too fast, before slowing into a hymn-like glow. This symphony never loses its potency for me, and tonight it crowns an extraordinary season devoted to a composer whose voice still speaks urgently across time.

Robin Hood – The Pantomime opens its curtains (of the waterfall) with Lorde’s Royals, a song that summarises this madcap folk tale. In the torn-up town of Wellywood, Robin Hood (Kathleen Burns) and his Merry Men, Lil’ John (a beautifully bumbling Aimée Sullivan) and Friar Tuck (Bronwyn Turei, Ngāti Porou), are forced to squat in squalor while the Sheriff (Jackson Burling) lords it up from on high. Maid Marian (Natasha McAllister) detests the Sheriff’s latest tax scheme, while her handmaiden, Courtenay Place (Jthan Morgan, Ngāi Tāmanuhiri, Rongowhakaata, Magiagi, Sapāpali’i, Lotofaga), is recently bereft and dismayed by her new status as a poor (pronounced 'purr') lonely widow woman. And so, she sets her sights on He Who Must Not Be Named, the Sheriff, in the midst of his e̶v̶i̶l plans.

Spanning hits from the likes of Kelly Clarkson (Turei’s lead in Since U Been Gone is jaw-dropping) and Taylor Swift (Burns’ chorus of Look What You Made Me Do is my show highlight), Shania Twain (such a tender You’re Still The One from McAllister and Burns) and Meghan Trainor (Morgan does look good in that Versace dress) (costumes by Sheila Horton), music is a key component of Robin Hood – The Pantomime. Music director Michael Nicholas Williams’ stage-side presence is sorely missed, particularly his tinkering on the keys. While more instrumental music would help drive the momentum in the first half, his arrangements and magic medleys feature his signature flair and work in well with Oliver Devlin’s effects-laden sound design. Every beat is perfectly accentuated by McAllister and Morgan’s hip, ‘camp’ choreography, which hits the bullseye every time.

The cast’s consistent and charismatic audience interaction ties the show together in a bow (and arrow). Morgan is a standout here, making two friends to bring to her sausage sizzle. Wildly special mention to an exceptional Burling, who feeds on boos like Raz feeds on mustard.

When I think of the Kiwi summer, I think of Circa Theatre’s beloved annual pantomime. Robin Hood – The Pantomime is as gloriously silly as the silly season it celebrates and signifies. A fun, fanfare-filled, festive treat for all.   

Tabea Squire’s description of her Conversation of the Light-ship and the Tide as “an unmoving ship in the ever-moving sea” gives us a different view on the dance theme. The power and danger of the deep-water open sea are heard in the opening grumbling of timpani and brass. Further complex textures and tones convey the relationship between the light-ship’s industrial structure and the endlessly changing and constantly moving sea.

The opening bars of Alexander Glazunov’s Saxophone Concerto in E-flat Major sound like something sombre and very definitely Russian. But, after the strings had set that scene, the incredibly talented Jess Gillam led us through all sorts of wonderful dances. Gillam embraced her saxophone inside and out through her impressive breath control, amazing dexterity, and deep, deep musicianship. She sometimes produced sound as if her instrument was woodwind instead of brass, with none of the rasping harshness we might associate with the saxophone. She breezed flawlessly through the fast passages, played with emotion and drama without being cheesy, and carried us to a swooping, glorious finish.

Darius Milhaud’s Scaramouche is three movements with something different for the saxophone. The first, Vif, was full of rhythm and running, each note clear and distinct. The second movement, Modéré, was almost soothing, with lovely exchanges between players and soloist. Brazileira’s rhythms got sharper as it progressed, finishing with pizzicato strings and a saxophone samba.

The title work, Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, closed the programme. The orchestra always sounds crisp when Gemma New is conducting. The first movement opened with an obviously Russian tone in the strings but switched neatly into the delicacy of glockenspiel, other percussion, and woodwind. The second movement was a slightly uncomfortable, expressive clash of brass and solo violin. The last movement has a part for the alto saxophone, played, of course, by the incomparable Gillam.