17/09/2026
Review for the latest production Mark McEntyre design - 'Teenage Dick', Written by Mike Lew, Directed by Pelenakeke Brown,
Stewart Family Theatre, Produced by The Court Theatre, Until 10 October
|NEW REVIEW|
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'Teenage Dick'
Written by Mike Lew
Directed by Pelenakeke Brown
Stewart Family Theatre
Produced by The Court Theatre
Until 10 October
Run time: 2hrs 10mins (20-min interval)
Reviewed by Kineta Knight for Backstage Christchurch - Theatre Reviews
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Review: 'Teenage Dick' proves Shakespeare’s darkest ambition still rules the school
More than 400 years after Shakespeare gave us one of theatre’s most magnetic villains, Richard III is back plotting his way to the throne. Only this time, the throne is the presidency of an American high school.
Mike Lew’s 'Teenage Dick' made its New Zealand debut at The Court Theatre on Saturday night, delivering a ferociously intelligent reimagining of Richard III that does something far more interesting than simply dress Shakespeare in contemporary clothes. It argues with him.
Directed by Pelenakeke Brown, 'Teenage Dick' shifts Shakespeare’s tale of ambition, manipulation and revenge into Roseland High School, where popularity is currency, humiliation travels fast and Richard Gloucester wants the ultimate prize: student council president.
It is funny, but beneath the humour sits something considerably darker.
Shakespeare introduces Richard as a man alienated from the world around him. He tells us he is “not shaped for sportive tricks” before declaring: “I am determined to prove a villain.”
Has Richard decided to become a villain, or has the world already determined that he must be one? 'Teenage Dick' drives straight into that ambiguity, and Joel Lago is superb at its centre.
Lago’s Richard is intelligent, funny and calculating, a teenager with cerebral palsy who has spent years being patronised, underestimated and bullied. They draw the audience in quickly, using wit and confidence to make us feel as though we are on their side before revealing the hurt and resentment underneath.
Like Shakespeare’s Richard, Lago also understands the power of speaking directly to us.
Brown and lighting designer Katrina Poharama make clever use of those moments. When Richard turns away from the world of Roseland High and speaks directly to the audience, the lighting shifts with him, creating the sense that we have stepped into a more private space. The effect is simple but highly effective. We are no longer simply watching Richard plot. We are being invited into it.
That was one of Richard III’s great theatrical tricks. Shakespeare tells us exactly what Richard intends to do, then somehow persuades us to enjoy watching him do it. Lew retains that dangerous intimacy, and Lago knows exactly how to exploit it. A look, a pause or a perfectly timed aside keeps us close to Richard even as his choices become harder to defend. He is charming, wounded and increasingly cruel, without ever becoming one-dimensional.
For centuries, Richard III has carried an uncomfortable association between physical disability and moral corruption. Lew turns that convention inside out.
Richard’s disability is not presented as the source of his cruelty, nor is he made virtuous because of it. He is allowed to be ambitious, manipulative, funny, angry and deeply complicated.
Crystal Nguyen’s Barbara “Buck” Buckingham provides an important counterpoint. The chemistry between Nguyen and Lago is one of the production’s real strengths. Their friendship is sassy, funny and completely believable, with an easy rapport that gives their clashes more weight.
Buck shares some of Richard’s experiences of being underestimated, but she does not share his belief that those experiences justify what he does next. Nguyen brings warmth, intelligence and a dry sense of humour to the role, while giving Buck the confidence to challenge Richard when it matters.
Both Lago and Nguyen are appearing at The Court for the first time, and both make a very strong impression. That strength carries through the rest of the cast.
As Eddie Ivy, Jordi Rea leans fully into the character’s high-school bravado and easy self-confidence, creating the kind of popular athlete who assumes the room already belongs to him.
Clarissa Duke is played with real conviction by Reylene Rose Hilaga, who balances the character’s ambition and self-assurance with enough warmth to make her feel fully realised.
There is also an engaging mix of authority and unpredictability in Christy Sullivan’s Elizabeth York, whose interventions in her students’ lives feel both believable and quietly revealing.
And Sophie Harris gives Anne Margaret real emotional weight.
In Richard III, Lady Anne is famously wooed by the very man responsible for the deaths she is grieving. The scene demonstrates Richard’s extraordinary command of language, but Anne largely exists to demonstrate that power. Lew gives her considerably more.
Harris allows Anne to initially appear as someone who fits comfortably within Roseland High’s social hierarchy, before revealing a young woman who is far more perceptive, generous and open than Richard expects. That openness makes her relationship with him particularly affecting. For a time, Anne offers Richard something Shakespeare’s version rarely receives: the possibility of another path. That makes what follows considerably more painful.
Brown keeps the production moving with confidence, finding the comedy in Lew’s collision of Shakespearean ambition and high-school absurdity without allowing the concept to become a gimmick.
Mark McEntyre’s set, Linda Harris’s costumes, Andrew Todd’s sound and AV, and Katrina Poharama’s lighting firmly establish Roseland High while keeping Shakespeare’s world close beneath the surface.
A royal court and a high school are not so different. Both run on status, alliances, rivalries and power.
As the story darkens, so does the mood. The laughs become less comfortable and the consequences more real.
Brown handles that shift beautifully, never dropping the humour altogether but gradually forcing us to reassess the Richard we have been enjoying. Like Shakespeare, Lew makes him entertaining before making us question why. We laugh with him. We admire his nerve. We enjoy being let in on the joke.
Then the production asks us to reconsider exactly who we have been cheering for. That is where 'Teenage Dick' becomes more than a modern version of Richard III. It becomes a response to Shakespeare.
Brown and her creative team have built a production in which that conversation exists not only in Lew’s text, but in the acting, staging, lighting and relationship between Richard and the audience.
The famous winter of discontent has moved from medieval England to the fluorescent world of an American high school, but the hunger underneath it remains instantly recognisable. Power, belonging, revenge and the desperate desire to control the way the world sees us.
Shakespeare would recognise this Richard immediately. What might surprise him is how much ‘Teenage Dick’ has to teach us about the Richard he created.
