After a grand, unexpected and memorable opening to the play, Genevieve Morris introduces herself as writer Cory Taylor. In 2005, just before she turned 50, she was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma and, with that, she was given a death sentence. The way she was told was cold and clinical, a doctor using medical terminology…
Imagine falling in love with a man many years your senior whose wife passed a year earlier, then quickly marrying him and moving to his stunning, sprawling estate. But far from the world being your oyster, you are shut off from his thoughts, isolated and lonely, very much living in the shadow of his beautiful…
MTC keeps lifting the bar. Kimberly Akimbo is a superb, zany, comical and tender production. The five-time Tony Award winner, which included Best Musical, concerns a lonely girl about to turn 16 who has a very rare genetic condition. She ages four to five times faster than normal, which means she looks old long before…
Partly drawn from the life of its Pulitzer Prize winning American writer Paula Vogel, Mother Play is theatre at its finest. It is a play about a lack of acceptance, about hurt and pain, courage and love in its many hues. It is a work built on recollections, those of the daughter in the piece,…
What is the price to be paid for progress? That is the conceit at the centre of the compelling drama with comedic undertones, The Wrong Gods. Nirmala (Nadie Kammallaweera) is a hard-nosed traditional Indian farmer who does what many generations before her have done. It is back-breaking work. She lives in a clearing in a…
The past and the present collide in a story that involves reframing a tainted history. We are in Gippsland in the 1840s and a white woman is discovered near death, washed up on a beach. Just what happened to her remains the stuff of myths, but she is said to have been rescued by and…
A rogue cop, police brutality and domestic violence are front and centre in David Williamson’s incendiary satire The Removalists. Written by the prolific and highly acclaimed playwright 54 years ago, the piece has lost none of its bite. With crime the number one issue in the state and partner abuse showing no signs of dissipating,…
If you have money, just how far are you prepared to go and at what price? That is the question at the centre of the devilishly clever Never Have I Ever. Bisexual Jacq (Katie Robertson) and Kas (Sunny S Walia) is a couple. Together, they run a London restaurant named Masada, or at least they…
When I first saw 37 almost a year ago, I was suitably impressed by the authenticity, grit, vitriol and humour involved in the production. In fact, it was another MTC triumph. With only one cast change, the second helping is just as satisfying. It gets to the essence of why football is much more than…
A whip smart dramatic and comedic script and a couple of stellar performances characterise a seedy story set in Singapore. Singaporean Chinese Girl (Merlynn Tong) is 14 and her brother Boy (Charles Wu) is 21. Boy moved out of home seven years ago and became a gang member, which he regards as a badge of…
