Reviews

Tim Winton’s Shrine is a play about grief.  How grief is experienced differently by different people; how grief can mask guilt or be poisoned by it; how grief can be driven by anger and blame; and how grief can be simply an aching emptiness. 

Two performers (Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse) are six hours on stage.  They speak at each other – and often past each other – but not to each other.  They speak into cameras and they read from auto-cues (so they don’t have to remember six hours of text).  We can see them, on stools or advancing toward or retreating from their cameras, stage right and stage left.  We can see their faces in Close-Up or Extra-Close-Up on monitors down stage.  Their ‘dialogue’ begins as a heightened version of two boxers, pre-fight, attempting

The work of Batton & Broadway is informed by numerous years of experience in cabaret, circus, dance and physical theatre. This production has an extremely subversive edge with a bittersweet flavour. The performers share thoughts and experiences related to their long careers as entertainers, which have clearly had both high and low moments.

Stirling Players’ Disney’s Mulan Jnr is a delightful and fun production. A visual treat than oozes charm, it features a very likeable team of 10 to 14 year-olds

Tiana Aitken is a wonderful find in the title role, delivering a very centred performance in her theatrical debut. Ella Simpson is dynamite as little, dragon side-kick Mushu, stealing scenes and singing beautifully. Sebastian Cruse is charming as commanding officer and love-interest-of-sorts Captain Shang, sporting a very new tenor voice.