Following its success last winter, a new, gorgeous exhibition of colour and creativity returns to the Royal Botanic Gardens this year. The after dark experience that is Lightscape features a stunning array of large-scale, colour-changing, illuminated sculptures. All but two are fresh designs. Back to captivate anew is last year’s piece de resistance, Winter Cathedral, and the…
Two new and very different works, each lasting just under an hour, constitute the opening of the 2023 ballet season in Melbourne for The Australian Ballet. Named Identity, in a nutshell it is contemporary dance versus traditional ballet. While there were elements of both that I admired, I felt there was too much repetition in the first,…
Olivia Ruggiero is talented. No doubt about it. She is operatic and she is adept at musical theatre, but at times there is a struggle between the two. I noted that very early on in Broadway Diva, when she sang a medley of show tunes. The operatic tended to overwhelm what I would call traditional musical theatre and…
The highly entertaining two-hour show could be called the soundtrack of the glorious Robyn Archer’s life. She, accompanied by a highly talented three-piece band – who also provide backing vocals – bring us largely a collection of little-known songs and a few poems. There are a few tunes she wrote and others that chart the path of…
As Gordon Gekko, in the 1987 Oliver Stone-directed hit film Wall Street, Michael Douglas said “greed, for lack of a better word, is good”. I venture to suggest that Berlin-based artist Julian Rosefeldt, who has created the impressive multiscreen installation Euphoria, would vehemently disagree. Using the musings of more than 100 economists, business magnates, writers and celebrities,…
Half a century on, the Rocky Horror Show remains a delightful, bizarre and engaging romp that encourages audience participation. Opening night of the 50th anniversary Melbourne production saw plenty of “shout outs” from enthusiastic patrons, acknowledged by narrator Myf Warhurst. With music, lyrics and book by Richard O’Brien, the musical is a tribute to the science fiction and…
Rhonda Burchmore sizzles in Cabaret De Paris. With those golden tonsils of hers, she sings up a storm. It is great to see and hear her in such fine form. She looks like she hasn’t aged at all. How does she do it? She’s cheeky, cheery, sexy and seductive. It is her showcase and she delivers in spades,…
It is the 13th century and we are with German poet and singer Tannhäuser (Stefan Vinke). Having left the company of his fellow troubadours, he has given himself over to lust in another world inhabited by the goddess Venus (Anna-Louise Cole). But he longs for his old life and so he leaves, only to find himself…
Tony Burge, who assumes the role of lead FBI agent Carl Hanratty chasing boyish con man Frank Abagnale Jr. excels in Cloc’s production of Catch Me If You Can. He is strong vocally and as an actor, with a fine command of comic timing, which is a key ingredient in the musical. With book by Terrence McNally,…
The ‘50s and ‘60s continue to resonate as Shake Rattle ‘N’ Roll gives us a cavalcade of song, movement and colour. The fuse is re-lit and burns for more than two hours, thanks to a poised, polished and preened cast of four singers and 10 dancers. The pretence is the re-creation of famous, gravelly voiced American DJ…
