It’s been a long time since I have read George Johnston’s 1964 Miles Franklin Award-winning My Brother Jack. However, through the lens of undergraduate literary-study nostalgia, I still recognise the seminal Australian novel’s place as part of our country’s canon, despite its challenge to our comfortable assumptions of national character. Still, like many I imagine,…
Next to Normal begins with a familiar modern family scene; suburban mother Diana Goodman (Carly Skelton) waits up late for her son Gabe (Christopher Batkin) and attempts to comfort her academically-anxious daughter, Natalie (Hannah Kassulke). Soon husband Dan (Adam Bartlett) rises to help prepare the family for “Just Another Day”. Yet their lives are anything…
‘Single Asian Female’… it’s a clever play-on-movie-title precis for dating profile purposes. Zoe (Michelle Law) however, is so much more than just this descriptor… classical musician, sister and daughter. Like many, her fractured family oscillates between being a constant of disorder and an annoying inconvenience… and this is even without her knowledge of her mother’s…
A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters is the heart-warming story of two people who share a lifetime of experiences through the now old-fashioned medium of handwritten letters. The epistolary work is a unique theatrical experience, not quite a play reading and not entirely a play, but very much an unforgettable event. For those unfamiliar with the play, its…
“I really love the story and I can’t wait to see what they’ve done with it,” I overheard in the pre-show audience at Brisbane Arts Theatre’s take of the Australian cult classic Picnic at Hanging Rock. It’s hardly a surprising expectation; the story of the disappearance of three boarding schoolgirls and a teacher during a picnic…
With music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, book by Neil Simon and choreography from Bob Fosse, Sweet Charity is understandably one of the greatest of Broadway musicals. Yet, far from being a big, razzmatazz affair, it is essentially a simple and tender story, which makes it an ideal fit for Brisbane Powerhouse’s intimate…
I’m theatre traditionalist at heart; I don’t like puppets, audience participation…. or magic. So needless to say, The Illusionists: Direct from Broadway is my first (somewhat reluctant) show of its sort. And what a spectacular show I must admit it is. From the moment it begins with The Trickster (Paul Dabek) cheekily pitting two young…
As its title suggests, Queensland Theatre’s Hedda is an adaption (by Melissa Bubnic) of Henrik Ibsen’s realist classic Hedda Gabler. The original story is of a scheming Hedda. Just into a marriage of convenience, she decides to destroy the life of an old lover, jealous of his new love affair. The original story is pretty…
Before The Book of Mormon, the equally delightfully-offensive Avenue Q was wowing audiences with its combination of childlike whimsy and adult issues. The hilariously vulgar puppet show features similarly skillful lyrics in its catchy soundtrack, from the upbeat sounds of “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” to the sentimental reflections of “I Wish I Could Go…
Neon Tiger is billed as the ‘adult gap year you never knew you needed’. Set to the beat of Bangkok, the musical love story promises karaoke, travel and romance. Rather than presenting a hustle-and-bustle travel tale of the tourist mecca, however, the two-hander tells an intimate account of an arduous and relatable relationship. Brisbane girl…
