Theatre

Refugees, asylum seekers and broader immigration have long dominated headlines and political slogans from all parties within Australia, and more recently abroad in Europe and the UK. For many people it is a polarising issue, for Perth theatre group The Last Great Hunt it provided the starting point for new work All That Glitters. A…

Of all of Shakespeare’s works, Hamlet is perhaps his most oft-performed and perhaps most recognised (of the tragedies at least). Indeed as I write this review; a version of the play with Benedict Cumberbatch playing the titular anti-hero is in previews and dominating news headlines back in the UK and beyond. Hamlet is also my…

Songbird, presented as part of NAIDOC week, is the sophomore production from local theatre group Imprint Productions, and the final production in the current season at Perth’s Blue Room Theatre. Written by Shakara Walley, directed by Ian Wilkes and featuring live music, Songbird tells the story, of three young indigenous people and their fracturing relationships….

Fracture, the penultimate work in the current season at Perth’s Blue Room Theatre, is the first work from emerging playwright and WAAPA student Lucy Clements. Directed by the ubiquitous Joe Lui, Fracture examines the aftermath of familial trauma and the isolation that can result from grief. It’s been roughly twenty-four hours since I stepped out…

He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy! Or rather more accurately in this case, he’s a neurotic actor, with just the right sized nose and a slight drinking problem; tasked by the Ancient Israeli equivalent of Don Draper, with spreading the word of this new fangled religion – Christianity. If you haven’t already…

Photo Credit: Jon Green The Song Was Wrong is the third production in Perth Theatre Company’s 2015 season and sees Artistic Director Melissa Cantwell take on both writing and directorial duties. The Song Was Wrong, the story of a love-struck Australian musician Christian and his French muse Cecile, is an utterly beautifully pensive and poetic…

Ahead of the tragically limited run of The Epic at The Blue Room Theatre we caught up with writer, storyteller and performer Finn O’Branagáin to find out more about the show, what audiences can expect; and just how important storytelling is! Click through for the full interview. How did the idea for the “The Epic”…

Under this Sun is the debut work from Perth’s latest budding theatre company, The Emergence Co. Directed by Warwick Doddrell, Under This Sun follows the escapades of three young twenty somethings as they, each for their own reasons (some more misguided than others), make their way into the unforgiving landscape of the Australian outback. I…

It’s hard to describe Chess, the musical composed by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus from ABBA with lyrics by Tim Rice, with its intricate plot, complex characters and multitudinous themes of love, politics and war – one really has to see it to experience it. With such well known songs as “Anthem” and “One Night…

Ahead of its Opening Night we caught up with Warwick Doddrell, director and producer of Under This Sun to discover a little bit more about what audiences can expect from the play, the initial inspiration behind the work and just what directing for the first time is like! Under This Sun is the first production…

Once We Were Kings is the latest work from Perth theatre company Third Culture Kids. Written by Dure Khan and directed by Mustafa Al Mahdi, Once We Were Kings explores what it means to be young, “queer” and Muslim and navigating the cultural minefield of contemporary Australia. Even after a couple of days, I’m still…

The Confidence Man is the most recent production in Perth Theatre Company’s current season. It also happens to be a theatre piece unlike any other I have seen, a remarkable technological incursion into the traditional world of theatre. Armed with a mobile and some headphones, the audience are let loose into the world of Pete,…

Armour, presented by 610 Productions, is the latest work from writer and director Tom Jeffcote and the second production in the current season at The Blue Room Theatre. The premise was a promising one; four men go into the wilderness and talk about their feelings. Unfortunately, Armour failed to live up to this early promise,…

Written by Chris Issacs, Old Love is the latest play from Perth’s theatrical super-group The Last Great Hunt. Fans of the emerging collectives work so far will not be disappointed; Old Love is full of humour, wit and captivating characters, from the sophisticated and sultry older woman Florence (Nicola Bartlett) to the younger vitriolic foot-in-mouth…

Following the success of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot in 2013, it made sense for the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) to take on one of the great playwright’s better known plays as a follow up – Endgame – with one of Godot’s leads, Hugo Weaving, in the production’s lead role. In what must be Weaving’s…

From the Rubble is the first work in the latest theatrical season for Perth Theatre Company. Based on the work of West Australian journalist Sophie McNeill, From The Rubble, is an unflinching and timely examination of the impact of war, conflict and extremism on innocent lives, both young and old. From The Rubble, as I…

Over the course of his burgeoning career, Finegan Krukemeyer, still only 33, has been commissioned and written 70 works, across 5 continents and multiple languages. With many of those works designed to be watched and enjoyed by children. His latest production (this time for adults), the wonderfully and loquaciously titled Those Who Fall in Love…

Following the recent successes of Ovo and Michael Jackson The Immortal in Australia, Montreal’s famed Cirque du Soleil returned to Sydney this week with their latest production Totem sitting under The Grand Chapiteau, some four years after it first premiered in Montreal. It arrives just in time for the company’s 30th anniversary and from the…

Overexposed the latest work from director-performer Danielle Micich and writer Suzie Miller is a timely piece and a thought-provoking one. With our everyday lives apparently threatened by the possibility of attacks both domestic and international, security and surveillance have become media buzzwords in recent weeks and months. It was quite fitting then, that on entering…

Falling Through Clouds is the new production from Perth theatre company – The Last Great Hunt. Personally I’d argue that that sentence alone should be enough to make you want to go and watch this work. But then of course you might not know who they are yet. If you don’t Falling Through Clouds will…

By the time the hit musical Wicked ended its run on 26th September 2010 at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney it had brought in over $50 million in ticket sales, being seen by over half a million people, before moving on to Brisbane. By the time it ended its tour in Perth, it had been…

Letters Home is the latest theatrical work from Joe Lui. If you’ve been to a theatre production in Perth over the last few years, it’s likely you will have seen Lui’s name and face in a programme somewhere having worked as a director, writer and designer on a number of productions, including with his own…

With her scripts for Mabo and Brides of Christ, Australian writer Sue Smith has never shied away from controversial or important topics. In her new play Kryptonite, which premiered this week in Sydney as a co-production between the Sydney Theatre Company and the State Theatre Company of South Australia, Smith tackles the relationship between Australia…

The Distance from Here is the latest production from Perth theatre company Endless Theatre Company. Written by American director, screenwriter and playwright Neil LaBute, the play is a dark and at times brutal look at life on the fringes of suburbia, a tale populated by disenchanted youth and their extended families. Though set in suburban…

When you ask people if they like musicals, one either gets an enthusiastic smile accompanied by a big “YES”! or an unapologetic “NO”, as a look of disdain comes across their face. When you dig a little deeper, it comes out that it’s not so much musicals like Mary Poppins that they’re talking about –…

White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, the final instalment in Perth Theatre Company’s 2014 season, is not your average night at the theatre. Written by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit is more akin to performance art than traditional theatre. Each night a different unsuspecting performer takes up the challenge of acting out Soleimanpour’s script,…

On Wednesday night Perth’s His Majesty’s Theatre stage was transformed into the ornate halls of the Vatican for the opening night of The Last Confession, presented here for the first time in Australia, with venerated British actor David Suchet (Poirot to so many) making his Australian stage debut as Cardinal Benelli. Set in 1978, The…

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…

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…

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…