Reviews

IF/THEN

Music Tom Kitt. Book & Lyrics Brian Yorkey. Lane Cove Theatre Company. Director: Lochie Beh. Musical Director: Stephen Dula. Pottery Lane Performance Space. 21 - 30 March, 2025

Lane Cove Theatre Company opens its 2025 season in a new, purpose-built theatre space right in the heart of Lane Cove. It’s an intimate space, with a small stage that is very appropriate for a production like IF/THEN that is a complex, thought-provoking musical.

Directed by Lochie Beh, IF/THEN is about decisions, choices, and where they might lead.

Guys and Dolls

Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser. Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour. Opera Australia. Directed by Shaun Rennie. March 21 - April 20, 2025

Image (above) by Neil Bennett.

Eyebrows were raised when Opera Australia chose a 1950’s musical, set in grimy gambling dens around New York, for its annual outdoor production with the glittering Sydney Harbour and Opera House in the background.  

But all doubts were blown out of the water by this joyous and exuberant production.

Image by Neil Bennett.

Freiburg Baroque Orchestra

Presented by Melbourne Recital Centre, 31 Sturt St Southbank Melbourne. Tuesday 25 March 2025.

The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra (Freiburger Barockorchester) consists of 29 musicians dedicated to preserving and promoting historically informed performance practice. The acclaimed orchestra was founded in 1987 and is based in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Gottfried von der Goltz (violin) and Cecilia Bernardini (violin) are both the artistic directors, alternating the duties of musical arrangement for their concerts. As an orchestra and an ensemble they are widely sought after, often attracting renowned conductors, and they are currently in Melbourne offering three separate concerts.

Aryan

By Amanda Crewes. Directed by Amanda Crewes. The Actors Hub Theatre, East Perth, WA. Feb 28 - Mar 21, 2025

Set in an easy-to-envisage near-future, Aryan tells of a young couple living under a president-dictator determined to ‘make his country great again”. The latest endeavour in ensuring racial purity directly threatens their four-year-old son, a little boy with Down Syndrome.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Based on the novel by Roald Dahl. Book by David Greig, Music by Marc Shaiman. Lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. Directed by Madeleine Johns. Redcliffe Musical Theatre. Redcliffe Entertainment Centre. Playing March 21 – March 30, 2025.

Redcliffe Musical Theatre has taken this opportunity to give so many young performers a chance to appear on the big stage, as there are fifty-two performers in this musical. It is always more challenging when the storyline and main characters are so well known by the audience as they are in this case.

THE WET

Creators: Harley Mann and Circa Cairns Ensemble. Director: Harley Mann. Original lighting design: Johlian Gliindon. Reimagined lighting design: Morgan Maroney. Sound design: Circa Cairns and Guy Webster. The Alexander Theatre, 48 Exhibition Walk, Monash University. 21 March – 22 March 2025

I grew up in Far North Queensland and waiting for The Wet during endless months of increasing heat and humidity is a memory seared into my bones. The anxious consultations about the activities of ants, insects and wildlife, the joyous romp through the rain which always started just as we were walking home from school. Then, the consequences of so much rain including flooded creeks and our drinking water being contaminated and undrinkable made The Wet a feature in our lives for at least half the year.

Fighting

Writer/Director: Xavier Coy. New Theatre, Newtown, NSW. 18 Mar – 12 April, 2025

Fighting is not an easy play to watch, but it’s important that we do! Fighting is about bipolar, a mental illness that few people understand – apart from those who suffer from it. Playwright Xavier Coy is one of those people. He wrote the play shortly after being diagnosed. “The play is raw,” he says, “and by far the most personal I have written. I had to write it that way to … help the audience understand that we are not crazy.”

Saints Of Damor

By James Elazzi. The Loading Dock, Qtopia, Darlinghurst. March 19 – April 5, 2025

At Qtopia in the heart of Sydney’s Darlinghurst queer stories across different cultures, wars and national identities are mushrooming.

James Elazzi’s new play begins in a regional town of Lebanon with fresh love between a tomato farmer, Pierre (Antony Makhlouf), and forthright young welder, Samir (Saro Lepejian), beautifully etched in short scenes from casual touch to passion.  The problem is Pierre’s widowed mother Zienab (Deborah Galanos) who insists he settle a huge debt by marrying the neighbour’s daughter, Layla (Nicole Chamoun). 

The Dark Side of the Moon: Full Dome Experience

Electric Dreams. Adelaide Fringe Festival 2025. Dom Polski Centre. Feb 21st – March 23rd, 2025

The Dome Experience is presented by Electric Dreams with Crossover Labs, a team of curators and producers who develop innovative programs for arts entertainment festivals around the world.

The Little Mermaid

Music by Alan Menken. Lyrics by Howard Ashman & Glen Slater. Book by Doug Wright. PACA Productions. Director: Rodrigo Medina Noël. The Concourse Chatswood.21 – 30 March, 2025

Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale The Little Mermaid was written 188 years ago! Like many of his stories, it ends sadly. Fortunately, as we all know, Disney’s 2007 musical interpretation does not! There the little mermaid’s dreams of wanting to venture beyond the shore not only come true, but she finds her prince, her voice is restored, the wicked sea witch disappears – and it’s all told in songs that have become “part of this world”.

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