It seems fitting that, whether coincidentally or otherwise, the day after Queensland Theatre welcomed audiences back to previews of Kieran Hurley’s Mouthpiece, the company unveiled plans for the brave new world of theatre in 2021. The program, the first from Artistic Director Lee Lewis is certainly a season for our times, filled with love, laughter,…
Mouthpiece … it is the name of an artwork by Declan Swan (Jayden Popik in an impressive Queensland Theatre debut), but it also has multiple other meanings within Kieran Hurley’s very clever and often ironic award-winning play of the same name. ‘I wanna live like common people, I wanna do whatever common people do’, Pulp’s…
Vincent River is not a location; it is the name of the character at the centre of Philip Ridley’s powerful 2000 one act play of the same name that addresses homophobic-based violence, which can really be extended to include violence against any form of difference. However, even with this knowledge, Vincent’s character remains elusive as,…
Noni Hazlehurst is unrecognisable as dishevelled vagrant Christie, wandering about the rubbish that litters the Cremorne Theatre’s ramshackle staging in Mother. Christie is a homeless alcoholic, sorrowful but resolute in her attempts to survive on the suburban fringe of Melbourne. And Hazlehurst inhabits her just as Christie inhabits the littered debris of Kat Chan’s set design….
The 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire is the most celebrated of Tennessee Williams’ works. The classic drama is poetically symbolic but also grimly naturalistic, as represented by the detached but detailed staging of Brisbane Arts Theatre’s production. The staging emphasises the play’s symbolism through its use of glassless mirrors and also aesthetically. The lighting…
Pre-show music and mingling sets the tone of The Neighbourhood, as the show’s performers (Cieavash Arean, Nima Doostkhah, Aurora Liddle-Christie, Dr Matt Hsu, Naavi Karan, Anisa Nandula and Amer Thabet) converse with the audience to prompt conversation around consideration of our neighbourhoods. Clearly, the concept of home is a complicated and abstract one and it…
The satire about the film and publishing industries in Sydney (the Emerald City of the title) is also about marriage and its strains, especially when it is of two competitive partners trying to find a balance in life. This is Australia of the late 1980s, full of entrepreneurial optimism and materialism, that see antihero protagonist…
Wolfgang’s Magical Musical Circus is a stunning display of daredevil acrobatic artistry set to the dramatic tunes of Mozart, making it a wonderful way to introduce children to the composer’s music. The family friendly show with an energetic circus twist starts slowly with a lonely birthday girl (Kathryn O’Keeffe) conjuring up Mozart (real-life husband Paul…
Based on the 1975 classic film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, a cheeky Camelot spoof on the legendary King Arthur’s quest to find the elusive treasure, the musical Spamalot is a pretty silly show. But silly is not as easy to do as it might seem. Thankfully, Spamalot sees Brisbane Arts Theatre giving audiences nothing…
Even before the QPAC curtain raises on Chicago, its experience is evocative, with a black derby hanging on the back of a black downstage chair, as signpost to the show’s indelible choreographic style and Fosse-esque attention-to-detail. The story of murder, greed, corruption, violence, exploitation, adultery and treachery (as its opening lines impart) is set in…
