Love, loss and laughter are potent and enduring in composer William Finn’s (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) Elegies. Based around the importance of community, Elegies is a song cycle, namely a series of songs that hang together thematically, rather than through a narrative thread. Having said that, attendees at a regular, all male…
Few are as fearless in opening up their lives, warts and all, as is Namibian born Natalie Gamsu. The singer, actor and cabaret performer who moved to Australia in 2003 studied drama at the University of Capetown and has worked all over the world. She lifts the lid on her experiences, giving us her thoughts and feelings…
Tom Holloway’s 100 Reasons for War (2015) has been updated to reflect present day conflict in Calamity Practice’s uproarious, disturbing production of the work. At one point, all eight actors that form the ensemble detail the multitude of unending fighting that has taken place since the Great War (WWI). It doesn’t make for pretty watching (not that…
Call it searching for creativity or a descent into madness. That is a matter of interpretation. Carpet and Sand is a fanciful re-telling of a trip that English theatre and film director Peter Brook took with a group of actors through the Sahara Desert in 1972. Among their number was Helen Mirren. According to the presentation in…
A contemporary twist on an old fancy, Monash University Student Theatre (MUST) in association with Bloomshed, have taken aim at supermarket greed. The plot is drawn from the satirical play The Government Inspector (1836) by Russian dramatist and novelist Nikolai Gogol. It is a comedy of errors, satirising greed, stupidity and political corruption in Russia. In The Government…
A searing look at female homelessness in Australia over the age of 55, Way, written and performed by Sally McKenzie, is as powerful theatre as it is shocking reality. In short, it is distressing but important to watch what unfolds. McKenzie – an MTC stalwart in the early 1980s who moved back to Melbourne from Brisbane as…
On the dark web, thousands of people connect. One such encounter involves a deeply troubled 14-year-old girl, played by Matilda Gibbs. She reaches out to see whether anyone can teach her about witchcraft, so she can cast a spell over those that choose to ignore her. She loves dancing, is depressed, invisible, friendless and keen to lose weight….
Mateship, isolation and mental health are on the line in the darkly comedic Milked. Paul Roberts (William McKenna) and Snowy (Laurence Boxhall) have been friends for years. Now in their early 20s, they live in rural Herefordshire, in the West Midlands of England. Paul has graduated from university and is busily looking for work. He has his…
A distressing story about intimidation and forced relocation, Aboriginal playwright and performer Brodie Murray dug into his own family history to bring it to life. The Whisper is a reimagining of his grandmother’s journey on horse and cart in the 1940s. When she was just a little girl, under cover of darkness she travelled with her family…
Set a generation after the height of the AIDS crisis, The Inheritance looks at what it is like to be young and gay in New York. It explores love and legacy and what we owe to those that came before us. At the heart of the work is the decent and caring Eric Glass (Charles Purcell),…
