Think of the notoriously sinful cities Sodom and Gomorrah referenced in the bible that were destroyed by sulphur and fire because of their wickedness. That is the starting point for the satirical opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Premiering in Germany in March 1930, with text by Bertolt Brecht, Elizabeth Hauptmann and…
Pushing the boundaries and then some is a bizarre piece of theatre conceived and performed by Carly Sheppard in the guise of a character known as Chase. It is a persona she has worked with for a decade. The 70-minute production has anything but a straightforward narrative arc. Chase is a larger-than-life character who wants to make…
White privilege receives a pummelling in the satire Admissions. It is 2015 and Sherri Rosen-Mason (Kat Stewart) is head of admissions at an exclusive US high school – Hillcrest in New Hampshire, New England. Over 15 years, Sherri has worked tirelessly to raise the percentage of coloured students at the school. She has succeeded in seeing that proportion…
Writer-director Adam McKay’s new film, Don’t Look Up, spoofs the materialistic, pop-culture world we live in. Earth is about to be destroyed by a comet, but do people care? Apparently not and the lack of interest is led by no less than the US president. PhD student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers the comet. At…
Mateo Askaripour’s debut Black Buck is a fast paced and always self-aware skewering of capitalism as a mechanism for both reinforcing racism and being part of the solution. Askaripour takes readers into the heart of the capitalist dream machine – disruptive start-ups selling dreams to the world – and finds it as repressive and unreconstructed…
The Great Australian Play is a thoroughly bewildering take on Australian history – specifically one of this country’s most alluring legends – and contemporary Australia. Of the former, I speak of a vast gold-bearing deposit in the MacDonnell Ranges in the Northern Territory purportedly discovered by Harold Lasseter around the turn of the 19th century. After…
If you haven’t heard of Kill Climate Deniers you probably should have. The hyperbolically titled play’s controversial take on the contentious climate change debate in Australia saw it hit the headlines in 2014 when its playwright David Finnigan received $19 000 from Arts ACT to write a play exploring climate change and Australian politics. The…
British author E.L. James’ novel Fifty Shades of Grey “struck” a chord around the world, just as Christian Grey loved to “lash” Anastasia Steele. Featuring bondage and sadomasochism, it was translated into more than 50 languages and has sold well over 100 million copies. Of course, further books followed and then a film series. The…
What price success? That’s the key question asked in Clare Barron’s Australian premiere satirical comedy Dance Nation. Set in the US, the seven kids – six girls and one guy – are looking to replicate their local dance club’s previous successes. They want to make it all the way to the national dance championships. But…
Freshly realized as a hot take on Perth’s monied-up western suburbs culture, The Real Housewives of Perth is based on the hit television show franchise that never failed to spill on the not-so-secret lives of rich ladies-who-lunch. (Though ‘lunch’ may be used here as a handy euphemism for selfies, shopping and next-level female power sledging)….
