Slapstick humour characterises a little staged and decidedly different style of saints and sinners musical. Victorian Opera’s Happy End is set in America in 1919. The storyline sees the Salvation Army come face to face with gangsters. The hoodlums gather in Bill’s Beerhall, named after the man who strikes fear into others’ hearts. Bill Cracker (Adam Murphy) arrives…
It’s always a treat to see a David Williamson play. But with Nearer the Gods, set in England in 1684, there is not a vulgar Australian joke to be heard, nor a can of beer to be seen. In fact, the only reference to a “pot” is in Isaac Newton’s chamber. Instead, using the backdrop…
Once you learn that Robbie Fairchild was a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet you can understand why he glides so effortlessly across the stage in a stellar display as the centrepiece of An American in Paris. He’s a wonderful talent and he pairs that magnificently with acting and singing. Mind you, his leading lady,…
Next to Normal is one of the finest and most profound musicals to hit the stage. It is not for naught that it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for 11 Tony Awards, collecting – among others – the gong for Best Original Score. Diana Goodman (Queenie van de Zandt) is a wife…
Pushing the boundaries and then some is a bizarre piece of theatre conceived and performed by Carly Sheppard in the guise of a character known as Chase. It is a persona she has worked with for a decade. The 70-minute production has anything but a straightforward narrative arc. Chase is a larger-than-life character who wants to make…
An original English and Yiddish adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short story Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy, Kadimah’s full length play is a lively representation of the spiritual and moral dilemma at the heart of the tale. Co-developed, co-written and directed by Gary Abrahams, it is based upon the religious tenet that women cannot study the Torah…
White privilege receives a pummelling in the satire Admissions. It is 2015 and Sherri Rosen-Mason (Kat Stewart) is head of admissions at an exclusive US high school – Hillcrest in New Hampshire, New England. Over 15 years, Sherri has worked tirelessly to raise the percentage of coloured students at the school. She has succeeded in seeing that proportion…
Pierre Anthon is a massive thorn in the backside of his classmates in year 9. Just one utterance changed their perspective of the world and now they are out to prove him wrong … and they will stop at nothing to do so. Anthon, who we never meet, says “nothing matters” and even as a youngster he…
One of the most creative and mind challenging works I have seen, Phantasmagoria revisits the past in order for the central character to move forward. Briony (played by Bernadette Trench-Thiedeman, Meg Dunn and Elnaz Shessgelani) is an artist – a woman whose difficult personal relationships as an adult have been informed by her upbringing. That has everything…
Political correctness and sibling rivalry get a decent working over in Stay Woke, the brainchild of Aran Thangaratnam. Sai (Kaivu Suvarna) is a 25-year-old of Sri Lankan origin who is involved in medical research. He and his girlfriend, 22-year-old Kate (Rose Adams), a pharmacist, are invited by his older brother Niv (Dushan Philips) to join him and…
