A family is traumatised by the tragic death of a child in Vaughn Stein’s Every Breath You Take. Philip (Casey Affleck) is a psychiatrist and lecturer, his wife Grace (Michelle Monaghan) a real estate agent. They have a young son, Evan (Brenden Sunderland) and he has a senior school age daughter, Lucy (India Eisley) –…
Just as all families are unique, it’s safe to say that all have their own individual issues and, accordingly, suburban family life has long been fodder for theatrical works. In the case of From Darkness Steven Oliver’s take comes with humour but so much more; the darkly funny drama is, at its core, about bigger…
Growing old isn’t for sissies, they say. Netflix’s excellent series The Kominsky Method proves the axiom; but does it in a remarkably empathetic way. Television legend Chuck Lorre is behind the series. Apart from the behemoth that is The Big Bang Theory, Lorre produced series like Roseanne, Dharma & Greg and Two & a Half…
Jim Cummings gives a bravura performance as a man on the edge in Thunder Road. This offbeat drama concerns a small-town US police officer who suffers a breakdown after the death of his mother. Cummings wrote and directed the piece, and appears in almost every scene. It’s based on his short film of the same…
The ability to write, direct and act in your own play is no mean feat. Especially when it’s a world premiere! So, accolades to Megan Wilding for her creative, humorous and sometimes confronting storytelling in A Little Piece of Ash. It’s only when those closest to us are gone do we begin a new appreciation…
Terrence’s Malick’s The Tree of Life won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, but it drove me batty because I could not make head nor tail of it. So too David Lowery’s (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) A Ghost Story, which I only understood in the most rudimentary way. It concerns an official ghost. You know the ones,…
An intense study of vulnerability, heartache, anger and loss, Shrine packs punch. Written by Tim Winton – the only author to have won the Miles Franklin Award four times – the play is directed by Marcel Dorney. 19-year-old Jack Mansfield (Christian Taylor) has died in an early morning car crash. He was in the vehicle with…
