A feel good Aussie comedy with dramatic undertones, Astroman really comes into its own in the second act. Set in 1984, the play centres on a 13-year-old indigenous kid, Jiembra Djalu (Kamil Ellis), who loves video games. He and his sporty twin, Sonny (Calen Tassone), their 16-year-old sister Natalie (Tahlee Fereday) and mother Michelle (Elaine…
What a delight! Time just zipped by in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. This cleverly conceived and executed comedy is making its Australian debut. With book and lyrics by Robert L. Freedman and music and lyrics by Steven Lutvak, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder opened on Broadway in November 2013, going on…
Three recent drama school graduates – Katie Cawthorne, Jessica Arthur and Laura Lethlean – formed The Anchor company to produce theatre work. Over the past year they have developed this 60-minute play, Two Hearts. It comes from their experiences of past personal relationships and their perception of how important the small details of their relationships…
Melbourne writer Melissa Reeves has adapted Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play, An Enemy of the People. It has been transposed and adapted to contemporary Australian times: 2018. It is a very faithful set of adjustments and is essentially true to Ibsen’s content and spirit – both his politics and his humour. The original play concerns two…
Lindy Hume’s darkly delicious production of the Mozart masterpiece Don Giovanni has “hit” written all over it. From the stirring opening overture to the amazing finale, with fifty-odd mostly naked women pushing Don Giovanni to hell, it gripped, titillated, amused, and at times brought gasps of disbelief from a shell-shocked audience. There was no watch…
Two women of a certain age do what women of a certain age don’t usually do – and love it – in One and the Other. We’re talking about circus acts. The show has a decidedly feminist slant and before the final act rolled around the #metoo movement was at the forefront of my mind….
If you admire Shakespeare’s Hamlet and some of the finest names to have assumed the role, then British-born actor and performance artist Dickie Beau’s tribute, Re-Member Me, is a must. He has been creating lip sync performances for the past decade. In this case, he brings a camp association to the tragic Danish prince because he thinks Hamlet…
Tennessee Williams’ one-act piece Suddenly Last Summer is intense and evocative. Vindictiveness is in play for an elderly mother who has lost her son. The year is 1936, and the place the garden district of New Orleans. The woman is Violet Venable (Jennifer Vuletic), who adored her son, Sebastian, a poet. Until the previous summer,…
Nine may not be a conventional musical, but it still has great power. It’s the story of a self-obsessed film director and writer, Guido Contini. Guido is about to turn 40, and his last three movies have been flops. He’s signed on to make a new picture, but has no idea what he’s going to…
David Williamson’s Nearer the Gods intriguingly promotes itself as a show about the politics of 17th Century science. This appears affirmed by its pre-show Purcell Chamber Music sounds and when Isaac Newton (Rhys Muldoon) appears seated at a table centre stage, he is wearing a periwig and dressed extravagantly according to the play’s Restoration-era setting….
