Category: Wellington

Protest: How Not To

It has not been a good week for protesting here in the land of the long white cloud.
The Save Manners Mall campaign was snapped trying to hire protesters to ensure good numbers for its next march.
I believe it’s a sign of innocence, not conniving. The campaign’s organizer has not impressed me with her insight or forethought. I don’t support the campaign at all – it opposes the redirection of a crucial bus route through a pedestrianized street, and while I agree that public and pedestrian space should be conserved, I place a higher priority on a functioning public transport system (both for the environmental impacts, and out of recognition that the health of a pedestrian city is dependent on the functioning of its public transport system.) Still, I was happy for the campaign to push its points, the pressure they exerted would hopefully ensure city councilors followed through on their promises to make up the loss of pedestrian space elsewhere in the neighbourhood.
Now, this – sheer foolishness that has surely killed this campaign stone dead. It was rightly excoriated by Stephen Price at Media Law Journal, who identifies the greatest damage as being to the credibility of popular protest itself.
But up the country in Auckland, another protest showed that perhaps there isn’t that much credibility to damage, as the “March for democracy” (an attempt to force the govt. to Listen To The People i.e. take those badly-worded referenda and make them into some sort of binding law goddammit) pulled a fraction of the expected numbers, and was even hijacked by a bunch of people taking the proverbial.
Russell Brown shakes his head sadly at some of the idiocy on display, while Editing the Herald exults in the madness.
It’s all a bit wild and woolly, in other words, and I remain unconvinced about the merits of popular demonstration as a tool of political influence. Of course, those who read the Johann Hari article on reformed jihadists in the Friday Linky will see that protest can achieve other ends; and I wouldn’t support the 350 movement and actions if I didn’t think protest was entirely purposeless.
Still, not the best day for citizen action.

Off The Ropes

I’m delighted to direct some eyeballs at “Off The Ropes“, the labour-of-love that is bringing home-grown Pro Wrestling back to television screens (and YouTube channels) here in NZ.
It screens Sunday afternoons on Prime TV, and the first half-hour episode is available in full at the Off The Ropes website.
Massive congratulations to friend-of-this-parish Blair “The Flair” Rhodes who calls the matches and makes more than a few appearances on-screen. This is great fun TV, with wrestlers promoting their own awesomitude, glimpses of behind-the-scenes shenanigans, and of course a couple of exciting bouts.
I’ve embedded the first 6-minute chunk.

Auditions are hard


Over the weekend we held auditions for Affair of the Diamond Necklace. One of our lovely performers is unfortunately unavailable for the remount, so we needed to recast promptly.
It’s the first time I’ve been involved in auditions and it was really quite tricky.
Everyone who auditioned was great and would own the part. I had, in my innocence, thought that auditioning would be about picking someone who was “best”. BZZZZT! No, they were all very good, so the decision was made on much more complex grounds – who had the right look, whose version of the character seemed closer to our goals, who seemed like they’d mesh well with the rest of the cast. Much of it came down to things that I don’t have a vocabulary for, so I was just flailing my hands around talking about how someone had “compatible energy”. (It’s interesting to me how much of the information we use isn’t located in language.)
Anyway, it fell to me to make the decision, and really it was a no-lose situation – all the people we saw would kill in the part – but I tried to find a good process. So I went with my gut, tried to talk myself out of it with my brain, and when I failed to do so, found that the decision was made.
Then came the hardest part, which was phoning the unsuccessful people to tell them they didn’t get it. Thankfully everyone’s professional and they made it very easy on me!
So now we’ve got a full cast again. Rehearsal tonight – looking forward to it!
The Affair of the Diamond Necklace

Marie Antoinette Video


Put this up on LJ the other day – a video trailer for the Marie Antoinette night, showing lots of clips from the August show. We look awesome. There’s a few changes this time around, including a new actress in the Marie Antoinette role due to our last one getting a TV gig, but that’s the feel of it. Who knew Wellington had so many French aristocrat costumes?

Much acknowledgement of Steve Leon, of SpringTV, for filming and assembling this trailer. I’ve been taking advantage of Steve’s skills and goodwill in various domains for about a decade and a half now. If you know anyone who needs some filming done, hire him!
Second rehearsal today. The script changes all played well at our read-through Tuesday, including a couple of fairly major adjustments – definitely a stronger, tighter show that plays more to the strengths of the concept. Very happy.
Right, off to morning meeting to decide on some other matters including what might be our next show! And then have to do normal work too 🙂

Diamond Necklace: Back Again


The Affair of the Diamond Necklace is coming back to Wellington in December.
There was an August show, which I’ve written about before. We’re back for another go Saturday December 12. A full evening of interactive entertainment including Vector Orchestra performance and a very nice meal. Will be an excellent night I’m sure!
We’ve been tightening things up, learning the lessons of last time out – a few script changes, etc. Rehearsals for the return version kick off tonight – this time I’m leading rehearsals, another new experience for me! But looking forward to seeing the team again. It’s an excellent bunch of people.
More information at the Eklektus website. Including a few photos, including me in a white wig.

RNZ Ballet: Peter Pan


Last Weds went to see Peter Pan: The Ballet Experience, from the Royal New Zealand Ballet, thanks to dear Felice my grandmother (who bought the tickets and sat next to me) and my mother (who double-booked herself so leaving a ticket free for me).
Great fun it was, a lot more like theatre than the ballet I’ve seen in the past. The design of the show was amazing, and the choreography (which at least one reviewer somewhere described as Russell Kerr’s greatest work) was inventive, engaging, and so effective at storytelling that words were unnecessary. The cast were all great, although I was disappointed we landed the only evening performance where Hook wasn’t played by Sir Jon Trimmer, the septuagenarian national treasure!
If I was somewhat more inclined to ramble on self-indulgently this morning, I’d write about whether we don’t generally under-value familiar stories. I appreciated how everyone in the theatre knew how the story went, even the very little children (of whom there were many). One small but notable change was to make the children’s ‘Nana’, a dog in the original (and the Disney version), a human nanny – one member of our party was disappointed!
It of course ended as the original play did, with the Darling family re-united and Peter forever apart. No allusions to the deeply strange final chapter of the novel (which, it should be remembered, was written after the play) where Peter returns a year later and has no memory of Captain Hook or Tinkerbell, and assumes the latter has probably died; Peter goes on to visit through the generations and take away Wendy’s female descendants in succession to Neverneverland. It’s odd, and the final line really underlined the oddness of the whole story: “…thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.”

Rasslin’


Some action from last year’s Halloween show
Just like last year, I rolled up with an enthusiastic posse to watch some rasslin’ at the Kiwi Pro Wrestling’s Halloween Howl extravaganza.
Highlight, of course, was seeing the redoubtable Doctor Diablo open the night trying to bring down the fearsome Brute, but even a spectacular moonsault off the top rope did not avail the man with a PhD in Pain!
After that fight I’d shouted myself hoarse already so I was left just gesturing for the rest of the night. It was heaps of fun.
I think once a year is about my speed for these things, but I fully intend to be back again next Halloween. Hooooo!
(Also, big news: the KPW lads and lasses have announced an upcoming series on free-to-air Prime TV called Off The Ropes! Looking forward to that – Sunday November 15!)

Death By Chocolate


Friday night, Cal and I went to see “Death By Chocolate”. Except see isn’t the right verb, because Death Choc is one of those interactive events that seem to be all the rage in Wellington right now (all the rage I say).
It was neat fun! The setup is that there’s been a murder, and the suspects are cooped up in the building for a couple of hours while the show-attendees, as trainee detectives, attempt to figure out whodunnit. There’s physical evidence to examine as well as all the suspects to interrogate, flirt with and cajole. Lots and lots going on, and add to that plenty of delicious artisan chocolate available for the guests to enjoy.
(I actually think there is valuable information to be gleaned from the chocolate, but we were all far too busy eating it to treat in in that manner…)
The two hours fly past, and then there’s a debriefing session away from the suspects and an accusation is settled on by the group; our group of detectives came up with a dozen different possible explanations so I don’t think there was much confidence in the accusation we finally leveled, but it was highly entertaining nonetheless.
The mystery is not solved yet – all will be revealed at the end of the season. The mystery deepens in a web-based continuation of the case, showing all the evidence and offering opportunities to talk further to the suspects.
So that’s what I did on Friday. It was really great. It’s on again this weekend, Thursday through Sunday. If you’re in Wellington, you should go.
Show website
Ticketing website