How can you stand up to a bully? That’s the question at the centre of the crime drama Dogman. Timid dog groomer Marcello is separated from the mother of his young daughter, whom he adores … and vice versa. He lives in a barren, downtrodden Italian neighbourhood and gets on well with everyone. To make…
If provocative theatre and the art of confrontation are your thing, then have I got a play for you! Ulster American is wildly funny, but not for the feint-hearted. Playwright David Ireland takes aim at politics and the treatment of women. Jay Conway (Steve Bastoni) is an arrogant – but Oscar-winning – actor. The American…
If you don’t know the names Betty Burstall and Buzz Goodbody, I’m not sure you’ll be all that much wiser after seeing the play The Other Place. In Carlton in 1967 schoolteacher Burstall begins sketching plans for what will eventually become the iconic La Mama Theatre, the pre-eminent, independent home of new, experimental unseen Australian…
Last year Widows took the crime drama genre out of the hands of men and into those of women. The Kitchen tries to do the same thing but fails. We’re in New York City in 1978. The 20 blocks of pawnshops, porn palaces and dive bars between 8th Avenue and the Hudson River owned by…
You’ve next seen a family Christmas quite like this before. Australian Realness has each cast member playing dual roles – one bourgeois and the other uncouth. The time frame is Australia in the late ‘90s. The posh and haughty meet the rough and ready. And for one heavily pregnant family member, a dream quickly turns…
Gerard Butler is at it again … saving the leader of the free world from a secretive group intent on bringing him down. Angel Has Fallen is the third installment of the franchise that kicked off with Olympus Has Fallen in 2013, followed by London has Fallen three years later. Secret Service Agent Mike Banning…
A Midnight Visit is an immersive theatrical experience that combines dreams and whimsy with performance art. I spent a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours visiting three dozen specially decked out rooms inside an abandoned North Melbourne warehouse, dubbed the House of Usher. In the anteroom (representing a funeral home) an undertaker expresses his condolences for…
Golden Shield is a new play by Anchuli Felicia King, having its world premiere production from the Melbourne Theatre Company. It’s set against a background of antipathy between the US and China. Their animosity has reached deeply worrying levels and Australia is caught in the middle. The play deals with “Big Brother”, mistranslated words and…
The Australian Dream is a vitally important documentary that calls out intolerance for what it is. I’m ashamed to say – and notwithstanding that many, most even, may deny it – I believe Australia is a racist country. Are we more racist than other nations? Perhaps not, but that’s not the point. Any racism is…
For virtually as long as humans have existed, men have felt entitled. They’ve subjugated women by dictating what they can and can’t do. Let Me Tremble addresses the disparity and calls out the bad behavior for what it is – inappropriate, anachronistic and inexcusable. Front and centre is the church, but the play has to…
