Reviews

When a story is told and retold and adapted in so many different ways you know there’s something special about it. This is of course the case with Puccini’s La Bohème, which has been adapted into popular modern musical RENT and used as inspiration for Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge just to name a few. In…

I have wanted to see Mozart’s The Magic Flute for so long. The “happy” opera, full of playfulness, colour and magic, a welcome change from my more recent (brilliant) but tragic La Bohemes and Don Carlos’. And boy was everyone correct! The Magic Flute is absolutely the happy opera. The first thing I noticed about…

Whether your faith is a God, the community or a Seers shopping catalogue sometimes we don’t ask the higher powers for something but he gives it to us anyway. Was there a riot demanding the 1988 cult classic Heathers be revamped into a musical? Probably not. But Off-Broadway is one of those whimsical places that…

Bright flashes beckoned us towards Melbourne’s Princess Theatre on Tuesday night as a myriad of celebrities sashayed along the red carpet. It was the opening night of Fiddler on the Roof and it seemed the entire city had come out to enjoy this long awaited spectacle. Long gowns brushed the floor, and champagne glasses clinked…

As I entered the Arts Centre’s State Theatre with a hoard of people old and young, I could imagine a time long past where the magicians, illusionists, and freaks of the world held centre stage as they shocked and tantalised their audiences worldwide. A time without t.v or internet, where the prime form of entertainment…

Sport for Jove’s The Importance of Being Earnest opens with perhaps one of the most perfectly choreographed scenes in theatre. Staged within an elaborate house and performed to “Le amour est un oiseux rebelle” from George Bizet’s opera Carmen, we see Algernon Moncrieff (Aaron Tsindos) after a long night of revelry, emerge and move about…

Before you all start to fantasize about Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan, I must tell you; this musical is not the stage adaptation of the 1998 film of the same name. But, I can assure you it is just as juicy, just as sexy and just as heartfelt. City of Angels is all about the…

Photo by Jon Green The Cockatoos is the latest work from writer and director Andrew Hale of Happy Dagger Theatre. Adapted from Nobel Prize winning author Patrick White’s short story The Cockatoos follows the goings on a suburban street in Australia; where under the surface of respectability there are plenty of secrets and dark goings…

Benjamin & Me is the latest work from writer, director, performer and purveyor of the ukulele, Mark Storen. It’s also the debut show for his new production company Whiskey + Boots. Benjamin & Me is quite simply a feat of storytelling and imagination. A show that is quirky, a little bit silly, but packed full…

Red Stitch is one of Melbourne’s leading theatre company’s and the fact I had not yet seen one of their shows is unacceptable. Well, I must say, the standard has now been set. Jurassica was my first taste of what sort of work this company can produce and it blew me away. There was really…

RENT is just one of those musicals that everyone knows. Perhaps it’s due to the success of the film, or perhaps just because it’s story and characters are so resonating, but it has clearly become a mainstay staple in musical theatre 101s. For whatever reason it is also a musical that I had actually never…

Between Solar Systems is the latest work from emerging Perth theatre group Second Chance Theatre. Written and directed by Scott McArdle the play centres on the actions of Vincent, the sole survivor of Earth’s cataclysmic sea level rise, or is he? I’m going to try and get through this review without giving away too many…

Latitudes is the new play from emerging Perth theatre group The Lost Boys, and marks the debut theatrical work from acclaimed screenwriter, film maker and musician Mark Walsh. Directed by Mikala Westall it is a work suffused with ideas of memory and of forgetting. An at times clever, meditative and mesmerising piece Latitudes has ensured…

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…

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…

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…