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…
At age eight, Anna (Max McKenna) was writing brilliant, highly creative, if dark stories. She was a very bright little girl. Upon reflection, a decade on, she regards that as indicative of being a child prodigy. Her mother Renee (Nadine Garner) though had real concerns. When Anna was on a high, her energy and enthusiasm lit up a…
The satire about the film and publishing industries in Sydney (the Emerald City of the title) is also about marriage and its strains, especially when it is of two competitive partners trying to find a balance in life. This is Australia of the late 1980s, full of entrepreneurial optimism and materialism, that see antihero protagonist…
Scientific subterfuge is at the centre of a gripping drama concerning the secret of life. We’re in London in the 1950s. Photograph 51 pivots around one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, no nonsense English woman Rosalind Franklin (Nadine Garner), who lived from 1920 to 1958. Franklin was a workaholic who was driven…
This quite unconventional Australian film is well worth a look. The combination of a story centring on an opera singer that takes place in an exotic north Queensland castle-like setting makes Celeste notable before the opening frames even commence. There’s a decidedly European flavour to the proceedings, but only up to a point. You can…
The sophisticated operatic farce, A Little Night Music, is set in 19th Century Sweden. It follows the misadventures of a set of illicit lovers and their spouses who come together for an idyllic weekend in the country. The show deals with issues of forbidden love and infidelity, sexuality, gender, class, lost love and regrets. Lawyer…
What is a life worth and what is its impact on others? That is at the heart of the Australian premiere of Di and Viv and Rose by British writer (and actor) Amelia Bullmore. It is a reflection of friendship and how ties that bind can be oh so strong. Rose (Mandy McElhinney) is a…
