Vive la difference. Award-winning UK theatre collective SUBJECT OBJECT and Nathan Ellis, who is behind the concept and the text of two immersive, interactive shows, don’t run with the pack. In instructions, they call upon a different unrehearsed actor each time over 10 shows to follow their directive, as the actor auditions for a role…
The combination of the new and the old is intoxicating in The Australian Ballet’s double bill Etudes/Circle Electric. Up first is Circle Electric, which combines modern dance, ballet, sound and light to create a maelstrom of movement, majestic and, at times, harried. I was totally sold on choreographer Stephanie Lake’s first full length commission for…
Two and a half hours of high-octane rock ‘n roll, an ode to Freddie Mercury and Queen, await those who venture in to Melbourne’s Regent Theatre to see the off-the-wall musical comedy We Will Rock You. Written and updated as well as directed by Ben Elton, it is oh so silly, but heaps and heaps…
Set during the last great Ice Age in Europe some 20,000 years ago, Alpha is an epic adventure. This brutal tale of survival in a harsh wilderness is a bit like a prehistoric version of The Revenant. It’s also something of a coming of age tale as it follows a teen’s journey to manhood. There…
Safely ensconced here in the Southern Hemisphere, few Australians have first-hand experience of America’s sometimes-toxic racial politics. In general, we experience it from afar, via either the news or some other media (like the recent film Get Out). Our national experience, while arguably no better than the USA’s, is however markedly different. So the Netflix…
Family is at the heart of Finding Dory, the sequel to Finding Nemo (2003), which has a standalone script (in other words, if you haven’t seen the former, you can still appreciate the latter). When we are first reacquainted with Dory here, she is living a comfortable existence with loving parents who dote on her,…
A Writer’s Odyssey is intriguing and a tad exasperating. This intricately woven crime fantasy explores power and loss … and making it as a storyteller. It crams a lot into its two-hour plus running time and requires concentration to follow. Guan Ning (Lei Jiayin) is heartbroken and isolated. He used to be a happily married…
Terry Pratchett was a prolific writer, and still commands a massive fan base. You could think of him as a kind of Roald Dahl or J. K. Rowling with a more surreal edge. His audiences tend to be more Monty Python than Harry Potter. But in the animated romp The Amazing Maurice, co-directors Toby Genkel…
The best storytelling comes from showing not telling… that is using action (or lack of, as the case may be) to reveal the emotions intended to be interpreted by the audience. Awareness of this is at the core of Hannah Belanszky’s mainstage debut work Don’t Ask What the Bird Look Like from its very outset…
Memories – personal, intimate, global … over time and space … on Earth and beyond. A monologue that is vivid and humorous and, at times, matter of fact, a kaleidoscope of disparate thoughts that come together to form a time capsule. That is what writer Emma May Hall pulled together seven years ago and revised slightly earlier…
