In good conscience, I can’t say I could recommend this play to … well, anyone. Within minutes, I was wishing I was anywhere else other than in Theatre Works watching Nihilistic Optimism On Trampolines. Seeing workers at a trampolining facility hooking up, bonding, squabbling and bored out of their tiny minds hardly seemed like the…
Filled with humour and pathos, Draw Two is a richly human tale. It is a compelling, beautifully crafted and superbly told story about the impact of a life changing event. In her late 20s, Riley thinks she knows which way is up. Put another way, she has built a life for herself that she likes….
Emotion rings true as five supremely talented performers (including the music director) celebrate the extraordinary legacy of American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. The breadth of his artistry rings true in a collection of his works that number in excess of 30. I speak of material drawn from noteworthy musicals and some lesser-known works. Mentored…
I can’t think of a play I have seen that I have detested more than the 40 minutes of garbled nonsense I sat through before walking out of The Anarchy (1138-53). The title refers to a civil war in England and Normandy at that time, which resulted in a widespread breakdown of law and order….
Our worst fears about artificial intelligence are realised in The Machine Stops, which is an adaptation of the 1909 novella by former English author E.M. Forster. It shares a common conceit with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). “The Machine” has sent humans underground and subjugated freedom of thought. Technology…
A murderous plan, oh most foul. That is at the heart of Dial M for Murder, written by Frederick Knott in 1952 and popularised by Alfred Hitchcock’s suspenseful movie two years later. TV crime writer Max Halliday (Leon Walshe) visits Margot Wendice (Bridget Bourke) in her London apartment a year after the pair had a…
A blood feud that can only end badly, this has been adapted from the 1933 tragedy by Spanish dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca. Two families are at loggerheads. They have been for generations. I draw a parallel to the antipathy between the Montagues and the Capulets in Romeo and Juliet. Extend that to the conflict between…
Drug addiction. If you can’t break the vicious cycle, there is a fair chance you will end up dead. Peter Cook was one of the fortunate ones. He is still alive after the intervention of his best friend. Rehab saw him get off the gear and he has written a compelling show about it. But…
I am a firm believer that everyone has a story to tell if you dig deep enough. Of course, some are arguably more compelling than others. Creator and performer Bron Batten has quite a tale to relay. It involves her ill-fated affair with a political polar opposite. She is a Left-leaning, Greens voting, almost vegan,…
It is October 1915. Private James Martin (Oliver Tapp) is lying in bed on the hospital ship the Glenart Castle coughing his lungs out. Memories of his family back home in Australia come flooding back. This is the story of a boy who, after blackmailing his parents, enlisted in the Army, having falsified his age….
