Reviews

Robert Lepage is alone on stage for two hours – two hours that are never less than engrossing and absorbing – and also sometimes very funny and sometimes very angry and at other times very, very sad.  Although he talks us through his childhood memories and beyond, his show is, really, ‘about’ memory – that is, how our memories are shaped, formed and remain via context internal and external. 

Theatre directors around the world continually look for new ways to interpret the classics and Tennessee Williams’s work is no exception. Over the years his Pulitzer-prize winning A Streetcar Named Desire has been pushed and pulled through all sorts of configurations; from being performed by an all black cast, a multi-racial cast, to drag troupes and even The Simpsons. Every major actress at some time in their career has had a stab at Blanche DuBoise, one of the theatre’s greatest tragic characters.

This is a powerful Othello with three exceptional performances at the heart. Yalin Ozucelik’s Iago and Elizabeth Nabben’s Desdemona were excellent, but Ray Chong Nee was remarkable. His anger and anguish are utterly real, and he was visibly shaken at the curtain call.

“I can’t help it, whenever they hit those long high notes I tear up,” said a young woman behind me, pretty much summing up the audience reaction. Free-Rain’s Wicked has all the polish and spectacle of the Sydney production at a fraction of the cost. If anything, it benefits from more talent and less annoying cameo. There’s plenty of stage magic here courtesy of background projections, theatrical smoke and a glorious lighting design by Phil Goodwin, culminating in the spectacular climax of Defying Gravity.