Relationships and love are sorely tested and put to the sword in C’est la Vie, the searing world premiere drama from British playwright Stephanie Silver that director Thomas Ian Doyle and the cast put together with only 10 days of rehearsals. Each of the couples here has hit major roadblocks from which there may be…
The restlessness and angst of millennials is on show in Disparate Scenes for Millennial Dreams. The show consists of three one-act plays in three rooms at the same venue, held together by a couple apparently arguing over performance art. I say apparently because frankly much of it was so obtuse I had no idea what…
A Street Cat Named Bob is a heart-warming and enjoyable film about an unlikely friendship. Based on James Bowen’s best- selling 2013 autobiographical book, this is a feel-good film about how a homeless man turned his life around with the help of a stray ginger cat named Bob. Bowen (played by Luke Treadaway, from Unbroken)…
The Australian premiere of Johan Inger’s comic, romantic dance theatre piece I New Then, set to songs by Van Morrison, is the undoubted highlight of DanceX Part I. Inger, a Swedish choreographer, danced with Nederlands Dans Theater and has made works for leading companies all over Europe. The feel-good 28-minute dance experience is energetic and humorous. The music…
Question: What does it take to really appreciate the life you have? Answer: Getting close to death. That is the conceit expertly explored by Andi Snelling in a zany, powerhouse show that grew out of the pain and despair she was feeling after being bitten by a tick. She contracted debilitating Lyme disease while on…
The astounding Romanian documentary Collective exposes corruption on a scale I haven’t seen. The immorality reaches into the highest echelons of the health system, killing patients who would otherwise survive. This happened recently – in October 2015 to be more precise – and it took an investigative reporter, Catalin Tolontan, and two of his colleagues,…
A remarkably adept, clever and enchanting tale of illusion and dance, Shadowland, by internationally acclaimed troupe Pilobolus* – founded in 1971 – also includes circus elements. As the first theatrical event of its kind to tour the globe, the 80-minute show without interval incorporates multiple moving screens of different sizes and shapes. It is a…
The opening of Tim Winton’s new novel Juice cannot help but put readers in mind of Cormac McCarthy’s seminal work The Road. A man, possibly an ex-soldier, and a young girl travel in a vehicle across a blasted future landscape: So I drive until first light and only stop when the plain turns black and…
An intense study of vulnerability, heartache, anger and loss, Shrine packs punch. Written by Tim Winton – the only author to have won the Miles Franklin Award four times – the play is directed by Marcel Dorney. 19-year-old Jack Mansfield (Christian Taylor) has died in an early morning car crash. He was in the vehicle with…
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…
