Reviews

An Indigenous Trilogy Act III: Some Secrets Should Be Kept Secret

By Glen Shea. La Mama Courthouse. Nov 23 – 27, 2022

ACT III of An Indigenous Trilogy is currently performed as a rehearsed reading at La Mama Courthouse.

Some Secrets Should Be Kept Secret is a gripping gothic tale written, performed, and directed by Glen Shea. It harks back to Act One, when our chief narrator Peter (Glen Shea) sits in solitude in country by his campfire, reminiscing in his own dream time as a person of the Stolen Generation - about a place he learnt to call home.

A Jolly Roger Christmas

By Noelene Rees. Cairns Little Theatre. November 25 to December 10, 2022

Cairns Little Theatre’s latest production has a pirate ship crashing into the North Pole and lots of boxes containing baked beans. A highly improbable plot until you realise that it’s a pantomime and in pantomime land anything can happen.

Written and directed by Noelene Rees, A Jolly Roger Christmas is a feast of entertainment from beginning to end. All the usual panto gags are there as well as plenty of opportunities for vocal audience participation.

Bernie’s Old Tyme Music Hall

Devised by Kerry Goode. Garrick Theatre Club. Directed by Kerry Good. Garrick Theatre, Guildford, WA. Nov 24-Dec10, 2022

As part of Garrick Theatre Club’s 90th birthday celebrations, they are closing their anniversary celebrations with

Coldhands

By Dora Abraham. Rumpus, SA. 22 November – 4 December 2022

‘Something is coming for us, something from below’ reads a slip of paper handed to me in the darkness by the Girl. The genuine tension of what might happen next is built brilliantly in this intimate experience of life in a world where for most, survival is their only goal.

Caress/Ache

By Suzie Miller. Silver String Productions. MC Showrooms, Clifton St, Prahran. 22 - 26 November 2022

A surgeon loses a baby on the operating table.  A mother argues with successive government departments for financial help; her son is imprisoned in Singapore.  A wife discovers her husband has been unfaithful.  A single mum starts work as an online sex-worker.  An Australian-born Iranian young woman discovers the poetry of her parents’ country and is inexorably drawn Farsi and Iran…  These character strands interweave around the theme of touch - its centrality, its power to heal, its power to destroy when prevented or withheld…  In counterpo

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

By Edward Albee. Performing Arts Association of Notre Dame (PAANDA). Directed by Lily Slattery and Georgia Comerford. Prindiville Hall, University of Notre Dame, Mouat St, Fremantle WA. Nov 22 – Dec 3, 2022

At a time of year when most theatre companies are choosing comedies, musicals and pantomimes, Performing Arts Association of Notre Dame (PAANDA) are bucking the trend, with the very dark Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

After a university faculty party, middle-aged couple George and Martha are visited by younger couple Nick and Honey, who are unwittingly drawn into George and Martha’s complex, bitter and abusive relationship.

Mamma Mia!

Music and Lyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and some songs with Stig Anderson. Book by Catherine Johnson. Originally conceived by Judy Craymer. Directors: Paul and Sue Belsham. Ballina Players. November 11 - December 4, 2022.

After an enforced hiatus, Ballina Players have finally been able to bring the full-scale musical roaring back to their stage with their production of Mamma Mia!

Rarely do we see a production of this calibre. This is a sprawling, and vibrant, production loaded with colour, movement, and unbridled enthusiasm and joy.

There are some splendid performances across the board, from seasoned performers to relative newcomers.

The audience is engaged from the outset, as they know most, if not all, of the songs on offer.

Sense and Sensibility

By Kate Hamill, adapted from the novel by Jane Austen. Canberra Repertory. Directed by Cate Clelland. Theatre 3, Acton, A.C.T. 18 November to 3 December 2022.

Celebrated playwright Kate Hamill seems to understand the confining traits of small communities and to relish showing them at their most ludicrous. Though her 2014 adaptation of Austen’s novel uses Austen’s exact dialogue, in translating the novel to the stage, Hamill combines peripheral characters, re-uses central cast members as extras, and makes use of these extra hands on stage to illustrate prying gossipers overlooking the central action.

Emilia

By Morgan Lloyd Malcolm. Directed by Petra Kalive. Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne. 10-27 November 2022.

Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s play places a welcome spotlight on the important figure of Emilia Bassano. Despite being a major influence on Shakespeare and possibly largely responsible for his talent, her position in history has been completely overlooked and ignored. The play sets out to right this terrible wrong. Emilia is yet another example of how women are written out of history to privilege male perspectives and positions of power in society.

Thespis

Libretto by W.S. Gilbert. Music by Arthur Sullivan, Jacques Offenbach. New performing version by Anthony Baker and Tim Henty. Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Victoria. Director: Diana Burleigh. Malvern Theatre. 17-20 November, 2022

This performance, by a long-established community theatre group, is a tribute to the genius of Gilbert and Sullivan. Their works, created in the late 1800s, still embolden groups to gather and create performances and support the solid place theatre has in the life of the community.

The Gilbert and Sullivan tradition invites the addition of current cultural references, and the audience appreciated the mention of the contemporary roles of smart phones and social media. Some slapstick was introduced and also enjoyed by the audience.

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