Reviews

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

By Edward Albee. Free-Rain Theatre Company. Directed by Cate Clelland. The Hub, Canberra. 2–17 September 2022

George and Martha have been in an embittered marriage for more than twenty years.  Not content to tear strips off one another — Martha with outright aggression and George with infuriating passive aggression — they like to involve unsuspecting others in their dysfunctional relationship, in a little game called ‘Get the Guests’.


Traps

By Caryl Churchill. Directed by Laurence Strangio. La Mama HQ, 205 Faraday Street, Carlton. 7 – 18 September, 2022

Traps has been described as a play with a “messy ontology” and this makes it a challenging text to interpret or perform. Caryl Churchill plays with theatre and narrative conventions in a much more complex way than even directors such as Goddard or Lynch did with cinema. The story is not told in flashbacks or episodes but in a strange, looped continuum (also known as a mobius strip), which is eerily asserted on the stage.

My Fair Lady

By Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. Free-Rain Theatre Company. Directed by Anne Somes. The Q, Queanbeyan. 30 August – 25 September 2022.

My Fair Lady — that beloved musical that has delighted several generations — is back, with its endearing story and songs such as “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly”, “I Could Have Danced All Night”, “On the Street Where You Live”, and “Get Me to the Church on Time”.

Photograph 51

By Anna Ziegler. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. Directed by Anna Ledwich. 2 September – 8 October 2022

This must be the strongest production I’ve seen at the Ensemble in recent years. Never dull for a second, there is no better 90 minutes to be had in Sydney.

K–Box

By Ra Chapman. Directed by Bridget Balodis. Beckett Theatre, The Malthouse, 113 Sturt Street, Southbank. 2-18 September 2022.

K-Box is a play that has a refreshing approach to a much-neglected topic. George and Shirley's daughter, Lucy, has yet to come to terms with the complications of being Korean and having white, Anglo-Saxon adoptive parents. The cultural implications of this begin to have an impact on her psyche as she gets older so she returns to the suburban family home to take a step back from her life. The white, middle-class privileged atmosphere is wonderfully constructed in the set and in the highly accurate stereotyping of Lucy's parents.

Art

By Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton. The Street Theatre, Canberra. Directed by Shelly Higgs. 6–11 September 2022.

In sequential solo scenes, Art’s three characters — Marc, Serge, and Yvan, all old friends — introduce themselves and their erupting conflict to the audience before exposing us to shared scenes in one or another of their homes.

Silence

Karul Projects. Choreographed, written and directed by Thomas E.S Kelly. Produced by Blakdance. HOTA Sept 1st, 2022 followed by a regional tour from Sept 7th.

It’s only fitting that Silence return to HOTA, the virtual place of its birth, at a time when our “new”ish PM is finally listening to the calls to end the silence which has been crippling reconciliation for the last 250 plus years. It’s about the silence of non-response, of muted muffled arguments, and pleas that are knowingly not heard. It has potent and poignant points to make. Most of all, it’s about the need for a Treaty - for all our sakes.

Chicago - A Musical Vaudeville

By Fred Ebb, Bob Fosse and John Kander. Drew Anthony Collective. Directed by Drew Anthony . Planet Royale Theatre, Northbridge, WA. Sep 1-25, 2022

Drew Anthony Collective’s production of Chicago takes its subtitle “a musical vaudeville” very literally with a vaudeville theme and feel giving this production its soul and impetus. Gritty, consciously theatrical, and well-performed, Chicago is a perfect choice for Planet Royal’s unconventional seating style and smaller stage.

Telephone

By Gita Bezard, Chris Isaacs, Jeffrey Jay Fowler, Arielle Gray, Courtney Henri and Tim Watts with Grace Chow and Elise Wilson. The Last Great Hunt. Directed by Gita Bezard. PICA, Perth Cultural Centre, WA. Aug 30 - Sep 10, 2022

The Last Great Hunt’s World Premiere production Telephone is an exploration of communication, featuring hundreds of telephone calls from which emerge a few interlocked stories. A cleverly structured ensemble production, Telephone has the excellent use of props and innovative use of technology that we have come to expect from The Last Great Hunt.

The Durga Chronicles

Devised by Priya Srinivasan, Philipa Rothfield & Uthra Vijay. Arts House, North Melbourne. 3 – 4 September 2022

With a brilliant dancer, a choreographed Keerthana choir of twelve women, traditional music, song, and enhanced by lighting and graphics, The Durga Chronicles creates two worlds.  First, the divine world of the Goddess Durga, the carrier of feminine strength, ‘the ruler and destroyer of demons’.  Second, the earthly, quotidian world in which human demons abuse, assault, and murder flesh and blood women. 

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