Exotic feast on offer in city's festival

By LINDA HERRICK


Though there will be a huge buzz at the news the AK05 lineup includes British actor Steven Berkoff in Shakespeare's Villains, the festival includes a strong range of New Zealand productions, peppered with a few works from Australia, the United States and Japan.

Pacific Island company The Conch head the local theatre programme with the all-female cast Vula, alongside Kirk Torrance's historic West Coast mining saga Strata, which won the Chapman Tripp Theatre Award for most original production.

SiLo will stage The Scentless Apprentice, director Colin Mitchell's adaptation of Patrick Suskind's novel Perfume, and the first New Zealand production of A Clockwork Orange, starring Danielle Cormack and Taika Cohen.

Bro'Town writers Oscar Kightley and Dave Armstrong's new play Niu Sila will be at the Maidment.

From Australia, Three Furies: Scenes From the Life of Francis Bacon promises a "sensual, sordid" work by Stephen Sewell, while Def Jam creator Russell Simmons' Tony Award winning Def Poetry Jam will see eight rappers take social and political polemic to new heights at the St James.

A highlight of the dance selection of AK05 is Aboriginal group Bangarra Dance Theatre's new contemporary work, Bush.

Michael Parmenter's retrospective survey Commotion will revive highlights of his repertoire, and the Royal New Zealand Ballet's Tutus on Tour will include a new work by Shona McCullagh, Verge.

There is one opera in the programme - Opera NZ's production of John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer, which like other productions in AK05 would have been staged anyway but now come under the festival banner.

American bass singer Kevin Maynor makes his downunder debut with a recital which salutes Gandhi, Paul Robeson and Malcolm X, and old favourites Cleo Laine and her husband John Dankworth return for one show.

From Japan, the Tao Drummers' Beat of the Globe combines traditional taiko drumming and spectacular showmanship based on an infamously tough training regime.

Families will love Bugs Bunny on Broadway, a Warner Bros production which combines big-screen cartoons with live scores played by the Auckland Philharmonia at the Civic. After the success of AK03's hilarious Aladdin, Michael Hurst returns with Jack and the Beanstalk.

The visual arts element of the festival will be taken care of in Mixed Up Childhood at Auckland Art Gallery, as well as various public art events around the region.


The festival opens with a free show at Aotea Square on February 26 and runs until March 13.

Auckland Festival