Sensitivity and soul permeate a fresh song cycle about life and its vicissitudes from first time writer and director Isabelle Davis, which strikes a chord. Emotionally resonant throughout, The Eternally Hopeful features four talented performers from their teens to their thirties who pour their hearts into the material. I speak of Jacqui Dwyer, billed as…
This guy – Fabio Motta – is absolutely brilliant. In the first instance, he has drawn on fact and upended it to craft an immersive, engaging and thoroughly entertaining story. More to the point, he and he alone (with a little help from the lighting and sound designers) manages to hold us in the palms…
In 1843, German philosopher Karl Marx famously wrote that “religion is the opium of the people”. So, does religion exist to assuage the tough times? But so much about it can’t be explained. It just is. Think of a virgin birth for starters. And then how do you deal with the untold misery in the…
As a proud, passionate and paid-up member of the Essendon Football Club, I do not want to win another match this season. Why? Because I would like access to the very best draft capital. So, does tanking exist in the glorious game of AFL football? Despite what the AFL would like you to believe, blood…
Do tech bros, that is entrepreneurs in the tech industry, rule the modern world without taking personal accountability for their missteps? You need not think too hard to come up with names that roll off virtually everyone’s tongues. That is a concept explored in this horror sci-fi about such a man who sets about trying…
Joan of Arc – was she a saint or a sinner? She was an illiterate peasant girl who believed she was acting under divine guidance when she guided the French army to victory in 1429. What she did was, indeed, momentous. She effectively stymied an attempt by the English to conquer France during the Hundred Years’…
Katzenmusik is a German word that translates as caterwaul, the shrill howling or wailing noise of a cat. And this is a story about the slaughter of 85 moggies, the end result of exploitation by greedy landlords. It is a disturbing, darkly comedic yarn about social divide from British playwright Tom Fowler, revealed in extraordinary…
The theatre makers have thrown the veritable kitchen sink at this one. Narrative, poetry, well-choreographed movements, puppetry, crowd interaction and breaking the fourth wall – it is all there. So much work has gone into the look and sound of the piece, and the result is spectacular. I refer to the set, props, costuming, make-up,…
Masterful and highly imaginative comes this trans-formative piece of theatre making. From the get go, I was intrigued and stimulated. Entering the theatre space felt like stepping onto the set of a high budget science fiction movie. It was visually arresting. Eerie, otherworldly music was playing. Tinged in green was shiny black scaffolding that constituted…
A pathological hatred and disdain for women is brought into sharp focus in a searing production from Vixen Theatre Company. Frankly, what is depicted on screen behind the actors disgusted me. And what makes it more appalling is that every word of it is true. Welcome to the domain of incels (involuntary celibates) and “manosphere”…
