First love erupts into a fight for Country in Whitefella Yella Tree. Teen indigenous Australians from different clans meet to exchange information. Ty (Joseph Althouse) of the River mob is tall, wiry, reflective and intelligent. Neddy (Danny Howard) of the Mountain mob is slightly shorter and sturdier, a livewire who darts about. They meet beneath…
Artist Joy Hester (21st August, 1920 – 4th December, 1960) didn’t run with the pack. Despite being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 27, given a year to live and told to put her house in order, she continued to do things her way. She thumbed her nose at the doctor and at the establishment….
Being a teenager … trying to make your way in the world … can be challenging and scary. So it is in 2008 for this group of seven Year 12 students at high achieving Stockport Grammar. Stockport is a town near Manchester, where playwright Simon Stephens grew up. Punk Rock was inspired by his own…
A gripping psychological thriller, Job pits a patient against a psychiatrist in a battle of wits and wills. Jane (Jessica Clarke), who is a content moderator in Big Tech, is on paid sick leave following a mental breakdown. Video recorded of the incident went viral, but now she is desperate to get back to work….
For someone who unashamedly struggles with Shakespeare (I never studied the Bard at school and find his language challenging), I was invested in Othello. I should add that my practice is never to read anything about a play before I see it. The reason – it must speak to me on its own merits. So,…
Written by James Elazzi, the two protagonists at the heart of Son of Byblos – Lebanese Australian cousins – are living a lie. They are not comfortable in their own skin and are afraid to share the truth with their nearest and dearest. Claire (Anna Khaleeda Rasheed), 26, has just returned from Lebanon with big…
In a bravura showing, Noni Hazlehurst delivers a world class performance as the ageing proprietor of a small, old-style, inner city Melbourne pub that she inherited from her father. No public bar. No Ladies’ Lounge. Just one room, something she describes as “never much of a place”. Metaphorically, it is last drinks for Rose Grey,…
Our worst fears about artificial intelligence are realised in The Machine Stops, which is an adaptation of the 1909 novella by former English author E.M. Forster. It shares a common conceit with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). “The Machine” has sent humans underground and subjugated freedom of thought. Technology…
Fear and activism sit alongside one another in a deeply felt, personal story about apartheid, set in South Africa in January 1976. In this world premiere production, the focus is on a “coloured” family, which has lost its matriarch. After several years away studying, 24-year-old Ezra Jones (Barry Conrad) returns to his hometown in Natal….
The world has gone crazy. How often did you hear those words or similar utterances during COVID-19? It is May 2020 and the preposterous meets the absurd in the dark Western comedy Eddington, as conspiracy theories abound. The starting point is decidedly opposing views from the sheriff of seven years in a small town in…
