Reviews

Moira Finucane is renowned for producing visually astonishing and confronting burlesque theatre and for radically pushing boundaries. Her work demands a more political perspective and her shows have created a cult-like following. In The Rapture, Finucane has maintained the risqué nature of this theatrical form as well as her unique style, and her devout fans are able to revel in her performance.

This new, celebrated British adaptation of George Orwell’s prophetic novel is here impeccably recreated by an Australian cast.  The co-adaptors/directors Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan have forged an artful, compelling telling of Orwell’s authoritarian world of doublethink, where histories are erased and words stripped of meaning.

It’s a brave performer who decides to do a live double-feature but that’s exactly what Margi Brown Ash has done. Eve is playing at the Powerhouse’s Visy Theatre on a double bill with He Dreamed a Train. In a chat leading up to the shows, Margi likened it to people who choose to participate in a triathlon. How she had any energy in the tank after putting her heart and soul into He Dreamed a Train only an hour earlier, I can’t conceive. Yet there she was, leaping about the stage with the energy of a three-year-old on a sugar bender.

The quintessentially Western Australian Cloudstreet, by Nick Enright and Justin Monjo, based on the Tim Winton novel, played to full houses at the Old Mill Theatre, situated just across the river from much of the action of the play.

Simply set, using projections (Daniel Toomath) and props, it was thoughtfully lit by lighting designer John Woolrych to create intimacy and broader spaces as well as ‘magical’ moments. Sarah Christiner provided a subtle but effective sound design.