Reviews

Bliss is a fascinating ‘look back’ at the heady days of abundance and hedonism in Sydney of the 1980’s through the sharp incisive writing of Peter Carey - filtered by way of the perceptions and dramaturgical skills of Tom Wright.   It is presented by an eclectic ensemble of versatile actors on a surprising set by Marg Horwell, with exceptional lighting (Paul Jackson) and sound (Stefan Gregory) and highly polished by direction by Matthew Lutton.  It is a lengthy, ambitious, keenly conceptualized and executed, hypnotic work that spans three hours

Brooke Robinson shows an horrific slide to homelessness for a Sydney working woman in her 50s.

Sandra’s voyage begins applying to shared households, visiting and seeking acceptance, desperate in interviews to match the whims of mostly crazed millennials.

Fayssal Bazzi and Kelly Paterniti play a range of revengeful brats, party-crazed dits, spoilt sloths or distracted young mums who interrogate and tease Sandra as a possible new housemate, before always showing her the door.

Alana Valentine is best known as a verbatim playwright giving voice to diverse communities and the challenges and sometimes horrors they’ve endured. 

The Sugar House similarly has a sharp sense of place; set in Sydney’s once working class suburb of Pyrmont, around the then iconic CSR factory, if now dominated by a casino and washed clean by new gentrification.

Twelfth Night is the classic romantic comedy involving mistaken identity, written by Shakespeare as post-Christmas entertainment around the turn of the 17th century. Based on a couple of existing sources, and written after the intensity of Hamlet, this light entertainment with its evergreen themes of love and topsy-turvy mayhem must have been a positive relief for the writer and a delight for audiences.