Diptych, The Sun and the Wind, Wonders with Scott Silven, Bernie Dieter’s Club Kabarett: Auckland Arts Festival 2024 reviews

A scene from The lost room, one half of Diptych at the Auckland Arts Festival. Photo / Supplied.

The Auckland Arts Festival is back for 2024, with dozens of events across Tāmaki Makaurau running until March 24. For reviews on the big theatre performances hitting the stages throughout the festival, check back here for insights from the New Zealand Herald team.

Diptych: The missing door & The lost room

When a performance starts with two dead bodies drenched in blood lying across the stage, you know you’re in for an interesting time.

And “interesting” is definitely one way of describing Diptych, the latest work from the award-winning Belgium-based dance troupe Peeping Tom. Made up of two performances - a third part of the complete Triptych did not come to New Zealand this time - this is a show that keeps you gripped the entire time, even if you don’t entirely know what’s happening.

The missing door, the first performance, opens with said dead bodies, one of which is dragged off stage so a butler can mop up all the blood. From there, the madness begins, as the butler starts writhing across the floor, chasing the rag that dances with a mind of its own. A stream of characters parade through the doors, including the dead bodies back to life. Doors fly or creak open in tandem with the dancers, while figures move by the window like ghostly apparitions.

There is rarely a moment of stillness throughout the show. The dancers are constantly in movement, crossing the stage with violent, jerky motions as if in pain, which only adds to the feeling of dread that permeates the entire show.

The only slump in the show comes halfway through, as The missing door ends and the cast and crew disassemble the doors and construct the new set for The lost room, a hotel room with a cruise ship vibe. It’s an annoying trend in recent years of removing the fourth wall to incorporate set changes into the narrative, and this is no exception.

The lost room maintains the same sense of paranoia and confusion from the first piece, while many of the performers wear the same costumes and seem to be in the same relationships, but how exactly the two are linked - or what the exact plot is - is never made entirely clear. Diptych lets the dancers and their movements do all their talking, for better or for worse, and you eventually have to let go of trying to make sense of it and go with the flow.

The show is unquestionably captivating, with so much happening on stage at once that it’s impossible to feel bored or look away. It’s as much a magic show as it is a dance performance. Both sets evolve during the course of the performance, revealing new tricks and illusions that blend perfectly into each performance.

This is a feat of a production, a completely stunning performance from all involved that is almost impossible to describe. Just don’t ask me what the plot was meant to be.

Diptych is on at the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre until March 24.

The Sun and the Wind. Photo / Supplied.

The Sun and the Wind

The Sun and the Wind, the latest work by prolific playwright Tainui Tukiwaho, is undeniably a small production. The set, also designed by Tukiwhao, is as bare as they come — a circle of black and white tiles on one side, and a circle of carpet with a ratty old dining table with space for four on the other. It’s fitting for the small cast, with only four performers taking to the stage.

Yet with this small cast and set, packed into just 75 minutes, Tukiwhao and director Edward Peni have created a world so dense with backstory and grief that stretches beyond the tiny confines of Q Theatre’s loft.

It’s engrossing and offputting in equal measure from the moment it starts. Barely any dialogue is spoken for about 10 minutes, as married couple Rangi and Hūkerikeri (or Dad and Mum as they call each other) eat their dinner and serve up a birthday cake for an invisible third party — their long-dead son. These wordless scenes, powerfully performed by Taungaroa Emile and Julie Edwards, tell you all you need to know about these characters and the impact the loss of their “Sunshine” has had on them for decades.

Then in bursts, Hehe and Kate (Joe Dekkers-Reihana and Tuakoi Ohia), a young couple expecting their first child, who have decided to rob the old couple. The quiet two-hander becomes a tense, ever-evolving acting tour de force by the entire cast. The entire quartet play off each other wonderfully as Hehe and Kate end up essentially being held hostage, settling into an unnerving facade as the strange circumstances and intersections between their lives become clearer.

Drawing its name from Aesop’s Fable about a contest between the wind and the sun to see who can get a man to remove his coat first, the play not only looks at grief but at the impacts of the parent-child relationship and the consequences of those dynamics on all involved. Like any good play, you feel like you know each character intimately by the end but Tukiwhao never forces anything, the development of each character and the revelations about their lives flowing naturally throughout the hour.

There are also welcome moments of humour amongst the drama, and everyone in the cast is a marvel to watch, though Edwards has the most to do with the most subtle and sudden shifts in character coming from her as the most explosive one in the room.

It builds to a gut-wrenching, emotional ending, though the final moments are undercut by a callback to a recurring motif from earlier in the play that feels forced at wrapping up that particular element. The dialogue can occasionally move too quickly at times to keep track of everything unfolding. If you are willing to embrace the mystery of the story, and the focus on collective grief and its lasting impacts, The Sun and the Wind is a true must-see and one of the most captivating local productions I’ve seen for some time.

The Sun and the Wind is on at Q Theatre’s Loft until March 24.

Wonders with Scott Silven is on at the Auckland Arts Festival.

Wonders with Scott Silven

Through the haze of smoke that covered the stage well before the show had even started, the simple set for Wonders was just about visible — a scattering of chairs, a drawing desk, lamps, tables, an easel the only relatively modern piece up there.

If it felt a little old-fashioned, it was soon made clear why. For his New Zealand debut, Scottish illusionist Scott Silven takes the audience back to his childhood spent roaming his grandparents’ attic, staring out to the Scottish wilderness before bed each night. It’s with this framing that Silven sells his ethos of us all being on a journey, that the 500-odd members of the crowd have been brought there by chance, but we can form connections together.

If the set itself is old-fashioned, the show progresses in a similar fashion. There are no big stunts or dramatic reveals here, Silven instead working through a series of illusions that wouldn’t have felt out of place in his grandparents’ parlour. Everyone has to bring in a pencil and piece of paper as they enter the theatre, before Silven unveils envelopes, magazines, dictionaries and giant cards.

It’s simple but effective, the conclusion to each illusion never failing to impress. As a reasonable sceptic who has avoided these types of shows in the past, Silven’s tricks did manage to surprise, and the variety of work was different enough that I could never quite see things coming. His Tuesday-night performance was undoubtedly helped by a group of young girls getting called up for some of the participation, and their obvious shock at the events was the perfect sales tool during the show.

Silven makes an impressive host, committing to the serious side when spouting the importance of our shared connections, while his enthusiasm for each illusion and glee when he pulled things off humbled him. He used the double bluff a few too many times, and the narrative linking each act did occasionally venture into overselling the seriousness and importance of our grand connections. Yet he delivered exactly what was promised with the wondrous illusions, the final reveal to end the night with a particularly great twist, and the show never fails to entertain and leave you guessing about how exactly it was all done.

Wonders with Scott Silven is on at SkyCity Theatre until March 24

The talented ensemble of Bernie Dieter's Club Kabarett. Photo / Jinki Cambronero

Bernie Dieter’s Club Kabarett

For years now, the heart of every Auckland Arts Festival has been its cabaret. Taking up residence in the Spiegeltent in Aotea Square, each show is often a highlight of the festival.

If you’ve seen one, you know largely what to expect. There will be singing, there will be naughty jokes involving the crowd, there will be performers doing jaw-dropping gymnastics, swinging from the ceiling in ropes, and twirling hula hoops in a way you never could have imagined when you played with them in primary school.

That’s not to disregard the talent on display. While all these cabarets have the same pieces to them, the picture each troupe creates with them is where the true talent lies.

Club Kabarett, with its German dive bar setting, stands out for the very simple way it presents each performance. After Bernie Dieter herself — dressed in a fabulous studded costume with attention-grabbing black wig — kicks things off with a raunchy rendition of the Beatles’ Come Together that sets the tone for the rest of the night, she then remains at the back of the stage for most of the night, her powerful vocals present beneath every performance that follows.

Joe Keeley's aerial stunts were aided by Bernie Dieter's powerful vocals. Photo / Jinki Cambronero

Her voice is incredible, accompanied by an equally talented band, and the music is the perfect score to each performer who graces the stage. The band and performers work in tandem, the songs incorporated into each routine so that specific beats in the music match each split, spin and drop.

It was a particular standout during Joe Keeley’s opening and closing aerial performances, a clear highlight that was captivating to watch and listen to. Later performers, including an endless variety of hula hoops, a back-bending fire eater, and a gender-challenging pole routine, were a feast for the eyes and ears. Dieter’s expertise on the mic continued through her own performances, working the crowd in the second act with an outrageous faux fur coat and delivering the night’s best jokes.

The power the music brings to the show was noticeable during two acts that weren’t accompanied by vocals, and which also weren’t helped by a prolonged set-up involving members of the audience, and the lack of a raised platform for a gymnastic dance routine that took place largely on the floor and was impossible to see from the back of the venue.

The complete show is an undeniable hit — equal parts sexy, hilarious and jaw-dropping. You may have seen similar versions of these performances, but Bernie Dieter and her talented performers make it feel fresh again, a show you’ll be dying to see again the second it ends.

Bernie Dieter’s Club Kabarett is on at the Spiegeltent until March 24