We all have our slight addictions, many of them relatively benign like coffee. For others like the protagonists of Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography, the most recent production in Perth Theatre Company’s 2014 season, they are more extreme and not without their consequences – whether it be his addiction to hardcore pornography on the Internet…
Read More
RabbitHead is the latest production from Little y Theatre Co and Whatshesaid. Directed by Ian Sinclair RabbitHead is a darkly absurd Australian comedy and performative response to Barbara Baynton’s gothic novel The Chosen Vessel. It’s a strange work – full of oddities and quirks, and even now, a day or so later, I’m still not…
Read More
The paranormal has long captured the interests of writers, directors and actors alike. You can even go into bookshops and find whole shelves devoted to the genre. Werewolf Priest!: The Lamentable Ballad of Father Hank Grimby, the latest production from writer, director and producer Levon J Polinelli both continues this burgeoning genre, and successfully parodies…
Read More
Wish is the latest production from Perth Theatre Company, and the first in its new season. Adapted by Actor and Director Humphrey Bower from the Peter Goldsworthy novel of the same name, Wish is a charming yet challenging piece of theatre, which will perhaps leave a few unsuspecting patrons unsettled and uncomfortable. Wish is the…
Read More
Elephents, the latest brainchild from writer Jeffrey Jay Fowler, has all the hallmarks of a good soap opera; love triangles, dramatic deaths and even the odd elephant or two. It’s sort of like Neighbours or Home and Away, you know, if either were set in a dystopian world plagued by power cuts and where going…
Read More
Isabella Rossellini steps onto the stage in front of a full house at Her Majesty’s Theatre to rousing applause. She is carrying a basket with two bunches of flowers, one of beautiful blooms and one of weed-like plants and explains how the blooms act like foreplay to the insects, which fertilise the flowers, whereas the…
Read More
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is up there as one of Shakespeare’s most oft performed plays. There have been countless as adaptations and reinterpretations over the years, but I’d imagine there are few as wonderfully strange and eclectic as Russian director Dmitry Krymov’s interpretation A Midsummer Night’s Dream (As You Like It). As clichéd as it…
Read More
Heroes and tyrants, Gods and Mortals, and ancient armies all clashed on stage on Sunday night. All of them brought to vivid life by one man, actor and co-writer Denis O’Hare, for the Australian premiere of the An Iliad. A captivating and engaging adaptation and reinterpretation of Homer’s Iliad by US collective Homer’s Coat, that…
Read More
Meet Bruce. He’s a “hero” cop, turned bestselling author, turned astronaut, turned time traveller. He’s also the titular star of Tim Watts’ and Wyatt Nixon-Lloyd’s new production Bruce. Oh and in case you hadn’t noticed already he’s a giant yellow foam block. Suffice to say this is a show like none other you will see…
Read More
‘Boy meets girl…’ – On the face of it, Trampoline is about just that – a boy (Matt) meeting a girl (Kelly) and falling in love. If only it was as simple as that. Matt is a compulsive dreamer, the lines between reality and his dreams are blurred, meaning most of his attempts to have…
Read More
Larry Heath sits down with half of Melbourne’s World’s End Press to talk about their debut self-titled album (Out October 4th) and much more…
Read More
Larry has a chat to the actress who has been given one of the most iconic roles from the world of murder mysteries and crime fiction, Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. Judi Farr is the legendary Australian actress who’ll be bringing Miss Marple to life on stage in Sydney and Melbourne in the production A Murder…
Read More
The Boat Goes Over The Mountain is the latest theatrical instalment in the current season at Perth’s Blue Room Theatre. Presented by Happy Dagger Theatre, and developed by and starring Andrew Hale; the production is essentially a one-man play, with accompaniment of a miscellany of instruments from Dave Richardson. It is a frantic mediation on…
Read More
The Little Mermaid. Many of you are sitting there thinking you know the story; you might even be humming “Under the Sea” to yourself. What you may be unaware that the Disney like with many of its miscellany of movies drew inspiration from fairy tales, predominantly those written by Hans Christen Andersen. However, unlike their…
Read More
Hedda, currently being presented at Perth’s The Blue Room Theatre, is a reinterpretation of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s classic play Hedda Gabler; originally written and produced in the 19th century. A multicultural effort of sorts, the production sees Norwegian actress and producer Marthe Snorresdotter Rovik collaborate with actor and director Renato Febratti, a graduate of…
Read More
The classic Tom Stoppard play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead has long existed as part of the Hamlet curriculum in the later years of high school, both in Australia and around the world. For me, and many, year 11 was where I first discovered the play, Stoppard and the beauty of the absurd. It’s a…
Read More
Bowengabbie. A small town, once the jewel in the crown of the Australian preserve industry, has faded into obscurity. The town’s youth departing in their droves for the city in search of better prospects and more money. Leaving behind an increasingly aging population. Add to that an eclectic and eccentric cast of characters, and the…
Read More
The Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Fury is the latest play from Melbourne playwright Joanna Murray-Smith whose past works including The Female of the Species and Honour have scored her a myriad of awards and acclaim, both at home and abroad. Fury has been garnering a similar level of critical success since it premiered at…
Read More
English playwright Caryl Churchill’s play A Number is the latest production to be presented by Perth Theatre Company, the first of their new season. Directed by Artistic Director Melissa Cantwell, the production is subtle and thought provoking, leaving the audience with lingering questions and plenty to think about. Though ostensibly the play could be described…
Read More
Turning the 1930’s cartoon strip and 60’s sitcom The Addams Family into a musical was never going to be an easy sell. They are, after all, a family who enjoy the darker side of life; finding general pleasure in pain, death and misery. They’re not exactly the type to sing and dance. Nor is the…
Read More
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and oft performed plays. It is a play that has become deeply engrained in popular culture and most can quote a line from the play. The main character is an iconic role, one which many actors strive towards. Though it is a tough act to follow, with the…
Read More
As we speak, there are three Spiegeltents doing the rounds (pun intended) in and around Sydney. Two are for Sydney Festival – The Famous Spiegeltent in Hyde Park you’re probably already familiar with, and the newer addition, The Idolize Spiegeltent, sits in Parramatta (and was also part of the Darwin Festival last year). The third…
Read More
Many will undoubtedly be familiar with the Oedipus myth, even if only in passing; we have Freud to thank for that. On the Misconception of Oedipus posits itself before the events of the famous play by Sophocles or Seneca; a prequel of sorts. But it’s also a meditation on fate and the shadow it casts…
Read More
The Theatre Royal Bath Productions presentation of The Caretaker for the 2012 Adelaide Festival is a superb example of modern theater, from one of the worlds most influential playwrights, Harold Pinter. Starring internationally celebrated and multi-award winning actor Jonathan Pryce the play is at once a simple tale of an outsider with secrets, and a…
Read More
In the middle of the courtyard there is a wooden dining room table, with four chairs. The lights dim, and from the four corners of the courtyard four men dressed in black make their way to the table and each take a seat. The lights raise again. A somewhat incongruous and misleadingly simple start to…
Read More
Indulging in life’s superficialities on a week night, with a glass of red wine and company from hopeless house-mates, is a form of dim relaxation taken for granted by Australia’s masses. Being confronted by a pizza delivery man revealing the world’s end to you and the pathetic group of people you live with isn’t really…
Read More
