What a story! What power! What magnificent singing and acting and one of the most dramatic scores in opera. Then we had murder, torture, rape and suicide for good measure. There’s no doubt Opera Queensland’s Tosca had everything and it was brilliantly revealed on opening night. What has been described as the greatest opera of…
Apparently, Joseph Stalin was an enthusiastic reader and loved the theatre. Of course, he was also acutely paranoid and one of the most evil dictators in history. In Collaborators, writer John Hodge portrays an almost-likable Stalin (or ‘JS’ as he was affectionately known by the secret police) as a contrast to the monster he is…
Mayhem abounds in Travesties. Set in Zurich in 1917, the play follows a British consular official, Henry Carr, who locks horns with a Dadaist, Tristan Tzara. Dadaism is an artistic movement that started around the First World War, meant to ridicule the meaninglessness of the modern world. Carr also falls for Cecily, a librarian with…
Prima Facie is a one-person play by Suzie Miller. It won the Griffin Award for Best Play in 2018. Tessa is a feisty young woman from a working-class background who finds her talent in the practice of law. In the journey of this play Tessa experiences what it is to be on both sides of…
In many Westerns (movies), the plot involves two brothers with opposite personalities, fighting for the love of one woman. In a modern day western True West, set in the suburbs of Los Angeles and the two brothers wrangle for the favour of the Hollywood producer, who is eager to pay good money for a unique…
Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti is a good-natured and lively affair with mistaken identities at its core. Emotionworks – the brainchild of former Opera Australia principal and before that a jazz musician and singer Julie Edwardson – presents opera shortened and performed in English mashed with contemporary music, all of which follows a theme. Edwardson’s aim…
A driven, high achieving woman melts down when two relationships go awry in Drive. Writer Rebecca Meston was inspired by the true story of former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak. You might remember Nowak as the person who drove non-stop for 14 hours to confront her ex-lover’s new partner. Wearing a disguise, she also a knife,…
In Escaped Alone, society as we know it has fallen apart. Survivors are few. Four older women who are among the lucky ones reflect on times past over several summers … as the years run into one another. Vi (Margaret Mills) went to jail for six years after killing her husband. Sally (Caroline Lee) has…
The pre-show soundtrack of “Teenage Dirtbag” type songs seems to be an apt choice ahead of La Boite Theatre’s Romeo and Juliet reminding its audience of the youth at the core of this story of vulnerable teenagers infatuated in spite of their familial-tie expectations. We see it on stage also in the show’s performances and…
According to American novelist Flannery O’Connor, “the beginning of human knowledge is through the senses”. This underpinning of human perception is at the core of playwright Elise Grieg’s world premiere work Magpie; its all-encompassing description offers theatre-goers immersion into the experience of a Brisbane summer, where thunderstorms threaten for longer than they onslaught and nothing…
