You’ve next seen a family Christmas quite like this before. Australian Realness has each cast member playing dual roles – one bourgeois and the other uncouth. The time frame is Australia in the late ‘90s. The posh and haughty meet the rough and ready. And for one heavily pregnant family member, a dream quickly turns…
My Dearworthy Darling from feminist theatre mavericks THE RABBLE is an esoteric mix of past and present. In modern day Australia, the marriage of a middle-aged couple is in real trouble. They are being pulled apart by mistrust, paranoia and violence. The woman is left scared and scarred. She’s trapped in a very unhappy situation….
Through the centuries, mankind’s tendency has been towards total control. Malthouse Theatre explores that tendency in the sci-fi drama Solaris. The play is a theatrical adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s philosophical novel about extraterrestrial intelligence. Movie adaptations followed in 1968, 1972 and 2002. Drs Snow (Fode Simbo) and Sartorius (Jade Ogugua) have been on a space…
Malthouse Theatre’s production of Wake In Fright is no less harrowing than when the eponymous novel was first published in 1961. But the play will make far more sense if you have an appreciation of the story before you walk in. Otherwise, I think you might understand the pieces, but not the full play in…
A compelling story of struggle is enhanced by highly creative staging, sound effects and lighting. Set over 20 years (from the 1940s to the ‘60s), Cloudstreet isn’t just another play – it’s a look inside the consciousness of two Australian families. Tim Winton’s novel won the Miles Franklin Award in 1991. Nick Enright and Justin…
Stick five strangers together in a room for a week and see what comes out the other end. Are they themselves or acting out some fantasy to form a shield of protection or anonymity? If the latter, how long before the shield is lowered? Intolerance, disinterest and antagonism are par for the course in Malthouse’s…
Last year I saw the quintessentially Australian comedy film The Merger. Now I’ve be able to see one man – Damian Callinan – on stage doing it all, in the show that inspired the film. He fills multiple roles – primarily coach Troy Carrington, who is trying to lift his beloved Australian Rules team from…
Barbara and the Camp Dogs pulls no punches. This is independent theatre with attitude. The two key figures in this play with music are Indigenous first cousins, Barbara and Renee. They’ve been brought up as sisters. Barbara’s mother left her and her brother Joseph when Barbara was just seven years old. Their father later came…
Racism and lust are on the menu in the Malthouse Theatre’s production of Underground Railroad Game. The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early 19th Century. African-Americans used it to escape slavery in the South by travelling to free states and what’s now…
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…
