Reviews

Sport for Jove’s acclaimed outdoor production of Cyrano in 2013 here returns, now indoors and well spread across the thrust stage of Sydney’s York Theatre, Seymour Centre, before touring beyond.  The cast is mostly the same but director Damien Ryan now also fills the shoes of Yalin Ozucelik in the lead.

It’s 1941.  A Jewish ghetto somewhere in Eastern Europe.  A famous example (there were a thousand ghettos): the Warsaw Ghetto - four hundred thousand Jews packed into three and a half square kilometres.  In the face of constant fear of execution, deportation, mistrust of their own Nazi-approved leaders, their Judenrat (Jewish Council), hunger, the stench of bad sanitation disease and simple, straightforward despair, ‘culture’ - art, music, literature and theatre continues – must continue.

Everything in Suzie Miller’s new play is not what’s expected. For example, it’s title. Sunset Strip, the name of the holiday spot where Ray brought up his two girls, Phoebe and Caroline, is now a dust bowl, the lake completely dried up. Audiences should approach the action, the characters and everything they say with utmost caution.

Like many in the arts, I don’t care for sport and I live in the city. So I wasn’t expecting to connect with a show about an AFL final in a small town. Yet there I was on opening night, enthralled by the energetic, entertaining and electrifying story of the ‘Pintoon Parrots’ and their struggle to attain grand final glory. At first, the story appears lighthearted, but like all country towns, you just have to scratch the surface to find the tragedy bubbling beneath.