Through the centuries, mankind’s tendency has been towards total control. Malthouse Theatre explores that tendency in the sci-fi drama Solaris. The play is a theatrical adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s philosophical novel about extraterrestrial intelligence. Movie adaptations followed in 1968, 1972 and 2002. Drs Snow (Fode Simbo) and Sartorius (Jade Ogugua) have been on a space…
Yank was a weekly magazine published by the United States military for its servicemen from 1942 – 1945. It’s the magazine where an awkward young man called Stu (Andy Johnston) partners with photographer Artie (Eli Cooper), who is also ‘light in the loafers’, to report stories. After Stu’s call-up, before he goes off to join…
A mashed-up musical genre is making a bit of splash at the moment – the arena show. Think traditional scripts, scores and costumes – then multiply it by a stadium-size stage and a cast of hundreds! Harvest Rain Theatre company are championing the way for this new theatrical movement, producing Hairspray and Grease in this…
Over the years, a number of well-known names – like John Hurt and Harold Pinter – have performed Samuel Beckett’s one-person, one-act play, Krapp’s Last Tape. Now the indefatigable Max Gillies joins them I’m a Gillies fan. He certainly doesn’t let you down as he takes on the persona of a 69-year-old man who looks…
My 1953 edition of Webster’s Dictionary provides this definition of diplomacy: “dexterity; skill; tact; shrewdness in managing affairs of any kind”. And these are exactly the qualities which writer Cyril Gély has so cleverly enshrined in his masterpiece play Diplomacy. Originally written in French, the translation and adapted version by Julie Rose I’m sure has…
The fourth of the great Stephen Sondheim musicals that Victorian Opera has tackled since 2013, A Light Night Music remains as charming and funny as when it was first conceived nearly 50 years ago. With music and lyrics by Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler, the musical was inspired by the 1955 Ingmar Bergman film…
Malthouse Theatre’s production of Wake In Fright is no less harrowing than when the eponymous novel was first published in 1961. But the play will make far more sense if you have an appreciation of the story before you walk in. Otherwise, I think you might understand the pieces, but not the full play in…
Brilliant staging and puppetry mark the MTC’s Storm Boy; a theatrical adaptation of Colin Thiele’s 1964 novel of the same name. The book has also been turned into two feature films, one in 1976 and the other earlier this year. This version remains faithful to the original. Youngster (Conor Lowe) lives in isolation in a…
As we take our seat, we are presented with three different actors, all dancing in thought, bouncing off each other and also off their surrounds. See You Next Tuesday will engage your latent tennis watching skills as the actors playing 17 year-old Evie talk all over each other, picking up on each other’s sentences (being…
Puttin’ on the Ritz is an all-singing, all-dancing affair with the occasional spoken interlude. Six vocalists and 10 dancers from London’s West End take us back to the Golden Age of Hollywood for a couple of hours. We’re talking about music from names such as Fred Astaire, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Al Jolson…
