Very few stage productions can boast superlatives like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (‘Joseph’), now on at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre. From start to finish, this production is magnificent musically, colourful in its presentation, engaging in its staging and outstanding in its efficaciousness. First presented by Andrew-Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice in 1968, Joseph loosely follows…
We find suggestions of child abuse abhorrent; but it wasn’t always so. Traditional fairy tales (like those of the Brothers Grimm) often include elements of adults being unspeakably cruel – or worse – to children. Indeed, in more recent times, writers like Roald Dahl haven’t shied away from including childhood hardship in their fiction. Netflix’s…
Kathryn Marquet’s The Dead Devils of Cockle Creek begins in darkness. When the stage is lit, it reveals a ramshackle ranger’s station shack somewhere in the wilds of south-western Tasmania. Centre-stage is Dr George Templeton (Emily Weir), cradling an infant devil in her arms. The environmental scientist is determined, passionate and intelligent enough to know…
Adapted from the bestselling novel by author John Green (The Fault in Our Stars), this is centred on Quentin (Q) and his enigmatic neighbour Margo, who loved mysteries so much she became one. Quentin Jacobson is intelligent, a loyal mate and a romantic. He’s 17 and in his senior high school year. Q believes that…
It would be easy to dismiss this charming crowd-pleasing little film as a Gallic variation of the Oscar winning Driving Miss Daisy. But this French drama, which screened during the recent Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, is so much more. Madeleine Keller (played by veteran singer and actress Line Renaud, recently seen in Call My…
Imagine you’re the partner or child of a soldier who’s sent off to war. How would you feel? Military Wives is inspired by the true story of a group of women in that situation. In this case, their partners were deployed in Afghanistan. Kate (Kristin Scott-Thomas) and Lisa (Sharon Horgan), are in a power struggle….
A corpse dressed to the nines being carted around the French Riviera in a wheelchair. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty in this farcical musical comedy that reminded me of the 1989 movie Weekend at Bernie’s, that became a cult classic. It is the second time the slapstick Lucky Stiff has played in Prahran in a little…
My Dearworthy Darling from feminist theatre mavericks THE RABBLE is an esoteric mix of past and present. In modern day Australia, the marriage of a middle-aged couple is in real trouble. They are being pulled apart by mistrust, paranoia and violence. The woman is left scared and scarred. She’s trapped in a very unhappy situation….
In 1929, Virginia Woolf reflected on the treatment of women in general and female authors in particular. Her searing essay, A Room of One’s Own, has now been adapted for the stage. Woolf didn’t hold back. She laid it on the line, pointing out what theatrical adapter and director Peta Hanrahan calls “the profound inconsistencies,…
Melodrama is amped up in Wonder Wheel, a period piece set in the hustle and bustle of Coney Island amusement park. Woody Allen has always had a special fondness for Coney Island. He set the childhood home of Annie Hall’s Alvy Singer under the clattering Cyclone roller coaster. Set in the 1950s, like so many of Allen’s…
