Reviews

Art in Motion Theatre Company’s The SpongeBob Musical is a big, colourful celebration of all things SpongeBob and the world of Bikini Bottom, with a large, hard-working cast and orchestra, that is presented with lots of pizzazz.

Everyone, at some time in life, has become trapped in a spider’s web and the more you try to get it off you, the more entangled you become.  That is the case with this murder mystery in every way – you have solved it, you haven’t and thus you are absorbed in the plot and action full time. This play, which premiered in London’s West End in 1954, Agatha Christie’s her second most successful play after The Mousetrap. It is easy to see why. This production is basically set around that time in England on a set suitable for the period.

Occasionally, we have the opportunity to experience theatre that transports us into something like an ethereal flight through time and place. Sandra Thibodeaux’s epic poem is one such masterpiece, performed with a rare and restless authenticity and an equally brittle honesty and self-awareness. We were, from the first words, utterly enthralled and completely on her side in the life and death battle against her failing heart and her equally failing faith in the ‘gowns’ – the doctors and attendant ‘scrubs’ – who might save her life.

Adelaide is blessed with several vibrant theatre companies on its margins including Blackwood Players, with most having a strong mandate to entertain their local communities. Each company presents the type of theatre and plays that their audiences both demand and love, and in doing so, provide a niche community resource.