Live theatre can throw up curve balls, but this – the 61st iteration of Truth to Power Café globally and its Melbourne premiere – significantly deviated from the script. Some might say it became a train wreck, as a number of the community participants called out the show’s creator for his alleged insensitivity. As a…
Ah, don’t we just love the Irish … and with good reason. You don’t have to look too far to appreciate their sense of humour. That is reinforced when erudite, evocative and entertaining yarn spinner Panti Bliss takes to the stage in a blonde wig and glittering dress and heels. The 56-year-old drag queen and…
Lauded American born Greek opera singer Maria Callas’ (2nd December 1923 – 16th September 1977), final days are captured in Maria. By then her famed soprano voice has gone and she hasn’t performed in years. As played by Angelina Jolie, she is holed up in her luxury Paris apartment. With her are her two loyal…
Be careful what you wish for. That is one of the takeaways from the psychological thriller Companion. It is a decidedly awkward first meeting at the supermarket for Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid), but their connection is immediate. Iris falls hard for Josh and they become a couple. Sometime later, they take a…
To the outside world she has the perfect life. She is CEO of her own company that is going places. She has a doting theatre director husband, Jacob (Antonio Banderas) and two daughters, Isabel (Esther McGregor) and Nora (Vaughan Reilly). But she has a metaphorical itch that has long needed scratching. And in the most…
A couple of fraught relationships and bygone days are at the heart of Stephen Sondheim’s pointed Tony Award-winning musical, Follies. Each year, between the world wars, Dimitri Weismann (Grant Piro) used to stage Follies, which featured beautiful chorus girls, in a Broadway theatre. It is now 1971. The theatre is in disrepair and facing demolition…
Life hasn’t turned out the way 42-year-old Liverpool housewife Shirley Valentine had envisaged. Married with two adult children – a boy and a girl – routine and boredom see her literally speaking to the wall for company and imbibing in more than the odd tipple. Her husband Joe (who we never get to meet) takes…
Writer and performer Frankie van kan came from a liberal family and, for the most part, was comfortable in her own skin. Now she pulls back the curtain to reveal her life as a stripper and sex worker … and she doesn’t hold back. In fact, Frankie is bold and bodacious, and we – the…
When I first saw 37 almost a year ago, I was suitably impressed by the authenticity, grit, vitriol and humour involved in the production. In fact, it was another MTC triumph. With only one cast change, the second helping is just as satisfying. It gets to the essence of why football is much more than…
A moving tale of rehabilitation, featuring many convicted criminals playing themselves, it is based on a theatre group at the notorious Sing Sing prison. Sing Sing is a maximum-security jail for men, some 50 kilometres north of midtown Manhattan, in New York City. The central character is John “Divine G” Whitfield (Colman Domingo), a foundation…
