At certain times of year or at a certain age we have perhaps all felt a little like the Ebenezer Scrooge of Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. As shake and stir theatre company’s adaptation reminds us, however, the cold-hearted elderly miser that we meet at the outset of the story is still capable…
Experience of Shock Therapy’s Locked In is an intense one, elevated by its grounding in truth. The Australian premiere is inspired by two stories – Ghost Boy by Martin Pistorius and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Baub – which both share about the experiences of living with Locked-In Syndrome. That is a rare…
Humans 2.0 begins with a flash of light as 11 bodies appear, moving in harmony around a round stage space framed by exposed lightbulbs, before their physical limits are pushed to extremes. Created by director Yaron Lifschitz, Humans 2.0 is circus at its best, an amalgamation of acrobatics, sound and light that builds and expands upon…
Along with Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Michael Gow’s Away is Australian Drama 101. The play is a classic work, easily able to be revisited and seen anew through a contemporary lens, celebration of which is central to La Boite Theatre’s revival of the much-loved work. While Gow’s memory play is of a childhood of…
“You have to write everything down,” newbie funeral director Steve (Mitchell Bourke) is told by a colleague on his first call-out. Thankfully for theatre-goers, Toowoomba born playwright Steve Pirie has done exactly that, with Return to the Dirt, winner of the prestigious Queensland Premier’s Drama Award (QPDA), the largest playwriting award in the country, which…
On the Sunday sliver of space between the end of Brisbane Festival and the Tony Awards celebration of Broadway being back, Queensland Theatre’s Artistic Director Lee Lewis launched its 2022 season with promise of continued celebration of the resilience of the arts and cultural sector, and the power of great stories told by talented artists….
A Midnight Visit is an award-winning immersive live theatre show that, having previously been unleashed in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne, has recently resurrected in Brisbane. Inspired by the life and works of Edgar Allen Poe, the magnificently macabre multi-room experience, invites its guests to explore a dark dream world of gothic thrills, obsession, decadence and…
For the uninitiated, The Good Room’s productions can be difficult to define. The celebrated, independent company founded by Daniel Evans and Amy Ingram creates unique theatre experiences, often from community, crowd-sourced content. Continuing on from its previous Brisbane Festival successes, Let’s be Friends Furever follows a familiar format to pull together a celebration and commemoration…
Dead Puppet Society is an Australian theatre company highly regarded for its creation of puppet-based visual theatre works of spectacle and wonder. Its shows have always been inventive. Its latest production is Ishmael. The puppetry comes courtesy of dozens of models and dioramas, which are projected in rotation on a massive scale through a live…
For those unfamiliar with John Steinbeck’s classic 1937 novella Of Mice and Men, a strumming pre-show soundtrack accompanying the rustic bunkhouse staging (Bill Haycock, designer) plants Ad Astra audiences firmly in its Depression-era California setting. Lighting also warms us to the tender take at the heart of the story as we meet is main characters,…
