Reviews

Any platform that brings the subject of mental illness to the forefront of conversation deserves an audience. The timing of this latest production is perfect, as we deal with a global pandemic and the frailties that it has unleashed. With plenty of material aimed at an adult audience, it is refreshing to see a child’s perspective and journey represented.

This is the fourth and final instalment in the series which livestreams original works by writers exploring their experience of life under COVID-19 restrictions in a range of remote and exotic locations around Australia. The pieces are read by the writers and the recordings are live-streamed. Each work reflects on the disturbances caused by the pandemic and the way lives have been dramatically disrupted.

The Man Who Dreamed continues the run of The Adelaide Repertory Theatre’s series of virtual plays, each a different genre, with playwright Ciaran McConville’s unpublished early script, first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe is no exception.

Interestingly, this play starts with a prologue of sorts featuring McConville outlining the birth of his play, based on a quote from T. E. Lawrence.

Relatively new Brisbane theatre group, Ad Astra, exists to push its creative team to new and starry heights. They work from a small converted office space on Misterton Street in the Valley, a short walk from the hub of King Street, and close to the iconic brick facades of the Exhibition Halls and the Old Museum. It is a great location for replicating the look and feel of Mark Rothko’s studio at 222 Bowery on New York’s Lower East Side in 1958, the setting for John Logan’s award-winning RED.