Darwin is sweltering and it’s raining cats and dogs. Ruben’s (Dion Williams) life is in the toilet. A court has sentenced him to attend counselling after he hit a cop, but he isn’t willing to play ball and he makes his situation worse. He’s full of resentment, struggling to cope with his brother Joe’s death, for which…
I long to see whatever Joanna Murray-Smith generates (and her output is prolific) … with very good reason. Her writing is pithy and pointed, insightful and invigorating. The shocking and dynamic Fury is a case in point. Salt is rubbed into raw wounds and new scars created in this “take no prisoners” drama about cultural…
The letter i is the square root of -1, which cannot occur; it is impossible, not because it doesn’t exist as much as because it makes no sense. It is a metaphor, perhaps for theatre, but even more so for experience of The Mathematics of Longing, a co-production between La Boite, The Farm and The…
What a lot of fun I had watching The Longest Minute. It had a terrific script, was filled with an array of great characters, had a brilliantly human storyline, and moved as fast as a winger with a try scoring intercept. And it all revolves around the 2015 NRL Grand Final and a Townsville family…
The Nightingale and The Rose is a Gothic fable. It was first published in 1888 as part of Oscar Wilde’s anthology titled The Happy Prince and Other Stories. It explores the beauty of love and art from the perspective of an effervescent nightingale. The bird hears the longing cries of a young student desperate to…
Hardly enough happens in The House of Bernarda Alba to sustain its 105 minute running time. Playwright Patricia Cornelius takes on Federico Garcia Lorca’s classic tragedy. Cornelius has transported the action from the villages of Spain in the 1930s to contemporary rural Western Australia. Along the way, she explores themes of passion, repression and isolation….
Good Cook. Friendly. Clean. is a new Australian play by newcomer, Brooke Robinson. It was short listed for the 2017 Griffin Award. Sandra, a 58 year old finds herself with a two week deadline to find new rental sharehouse accommodation in Sydney. Over nine scenes we travel with Sandra to a series of meetings –…
Going Down gives cultural identity a good old-fashioned pounding. A stellar lead performance provides the highlight of this 90-minute play (no interval). Hmong-Australian playwright Michele Lee (winner of the 2018 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Rice) provides the source material. Going Down is one for the “me” generation; the hedonists who would rebel against their past. The…
The MTC’s Wild is an example of a play in which technological achievement outdoes narrative content. To say any more about the former would be to spoil the surprise and I’m not about to be a party pooper. Andrew (Nicholas Denton) is an ordinary Joe one day – and America’s most wanted the next. The…
What a night; laughs galore, some of the funniest characters you’ll ever seen on a stage, amazing comic performances from a superb cast, brilliant set, lighting and costumes, a whole heap of catchy new music from Tim Finn and finally a well deserved and triumphant standing ovation. Shakespeare would have been applauding in his grave….
