Reviews

Nicola Gunn’s show is anti-theatre – which is not to say it is not theatrical or not entertaining.  It is both.  It just works against – or confounds – our expectations.  In fact, for an audience to be completely absorbed by one slight woman in jeans and a T-shirt alone on stage for an hour and fifteen minutes is quite an achievement.  But Working with Children employs other means, which involve the audience in making connections and guessing at meanings rather than those meanings being dramatized. 

Popped up in the heart of Moore Park’s Entertainment Quarter is a full-size replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and it’s really something. This 200-tonne, 3-storey conglomeration of scaffolding and seats faces a really big stage featuring brilliant, up-close contact with the actors. A large chunk of the audience, the ‘groundlings’, have to stand throughout the show but are regarded as part of the action, treated as mates one minute or spattered with pretend blood in another.

There is a lot to be said about one’s early years and how indoctrination can play a big part in shaping one’s life. Annie Lee has us in awe of her mind-boggling journey in her first solo show, Pawn Again Christian.

Hallelujah sister and all praise to anyone who can escape the strict confines of a Jehovah’s Witness upbringing. Lee was raised in Launceston and spent part of her childhood living with her family in a lighthouse, only to dream of rooms with corners and having real friends who would not ostracize her for neighborhood door-knocking.

Musical Theatre tragics, myself included, long found the relative local obscurity of this Broadway musical from the creators of Fiddler on the Roof hard to grasp, having listened rapturously and repeatedly to the original stellar cast recording. After decades of ‘cult’ status, award winning Broadway and West End revivals have spread awareness of this 1960s charm show, now receiving an intimate professional production at Sydney’s Hayes Theatre.