David Williamson’s Nearer the Gods intriguingly promotes itself as a show about the politics of 17th Century science. This appears affirmed by its pre-show Purcell Chamber Music sounds and when Isaac Newton (Rhys Muldoon) appears seated at a table centre stage, he is wearing a periwig and dressed extravagantly according to the play’s Restoration-era setting….
Maggie Stone is an Australian play by Caleb Lewis. It was written eight years ago. This is its first outing in Sydney. Maggie Stone (Eliza Logan), a let-herself-go, middle-aged lower rung corporate slave – small loans officer – struggles to maintain an equilibrium of pleasantness around the ‘service’ she’s meant to dole out. Coming from…
It’s January 1969. Richard Nixon has just been inaugurated as president. A new decade beckons. And seven very different but equally lost souls converge on a once-glorious resort that’s fallen – like its visitors – into disrepute, in Bad Times at the El Royale. Situated on the border between California and Nevada, the El Royale…
Damien Chazelle shows why he’s regarded as one of the most promising directors of his generation with First Man. After Whiplash and La La Land, this is his third knockout movie in a row – and one that will likely put him in the Oscars frame once again. This is Chazelle’s most mature film to…
The intensely brutal prison drama A Prayer Before Dawn is like Kickboxer meets Midnight Express. This unflinching, hard-hitting and gritty and harrowing true story is set inside Thailand’s notorious Bang Kwang Central Prison, better known as the infamous Bangkok Hilton. Like Midnight Express, A Prayer Before Dawn is based on a real-life story. In this case,…
Trustees is an obscure work that’s bound to polarise audiences. It’s also bold, audacious and evocative. I’m not convinced I made sense of it all. When the 90-minute play starts, five actors appear on stage One is a moderator, and the other four are on either side of a debate hosted by a (fictitious) body…
The new tween adventure Harmony is another walk down the dark side of fantasy. Harmony (Jessica Falkholt) is different … very different. She has the supernatural power to absorb others’ fear. Each person she touches literally loses their trepidation. She absorbs it as a black liquid that she later washes from her skin. So, healing…
Friends and family gather for a weekend in the countryside in Michael Mayer’s version of Chekhov’s The Seagull. While everyone is caught up in passionately loving someone who loves somebody else, a tragicomedy unfolds about the eternal desire to live a purposeful life. Sorin (Brian Dennehy), a retired government employee, and his sister Irina (Annette…
Plays like The Architect are why I gained an appreciation of theatre. Because it has the ability to move you … to feel deep-seated emotion. Helen (Linda Cropper) is a no-nonsense woman in her late 60s. She is dying. She lives in Victoria and is in a 10-year relationship with a doting partner, John Stafford…
How not to plan and execute a heist. Four totally clueless amateurs get involved in something they should never have attempted in American Animals. Frighteningly, it’s based on relatively recent reality. The story centres around unpredictable wild child Warren (Evan Peters) and aspiring artist Spencer (Barry Keoghan), two friends from the middle-class suburbs of Lexington,…
