Reviews

The Dinner Party

Expressions Dance Company. Cremorne Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), Brisbane. 10 - 18 May, 2019 and touring.

If you’ve ever been to a social gathering where you’ve felt a bit awkward or out of control, you’ll relate to The Dinner Party. The action takes place around a large table, commandeered by elegant hosts played brilliantly by Jake McLarnon and Lizzie Vilmanis.

Moving Mountains

By Lawrence Roman. Galleon Theatre Group (SA). Marion Cultural Centre. May 9-18, 2019

Lawrence Roman’s Moving Mountains is a fun frolic in the hands of Galleon Theatre Group and very enjoyable, although even with ‘light bulb moments’ created by pings of sound, the meaning behind the play’s title is never particularly obvious. Perhaps it is mostly that the lead character, Charlie Fuller, has to do a lot of manoeuvring to keep his multiple and concurrent sexual dalliances secret from his daughter, as well as separate from each of the women involved with him.

One Man, Two Guvnors

By Richard Bean. Richmond Players. School of Arts. Saturday May 11, 2019 – 8pm, Friday May 17 – 8pm, Saturday May 18 – 2pm & 8pm.

Think Britain in the 1920s! Flappers and tappers! Gangsters and pranksters! Think colourful, busy beachside Brighton! That’s exactly where director Carol Dicker has taken this production of One Man, Two Guvnors, Richard Bean’s madcap adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s eighteenth centurycommedia dell’arte play, Servant of Two Masters.

Highway of Lost Hearts

By Mary Anne Butler. Directed by Kat Dekker. Presented by Minola Theatre. The Amphitheatre at Seven Hills Hub (Qld). 9 May – 18 May, 2019

A woman trying to heal the empty wound where her heart once sat, travels thousands of kilometres through the harsh Australian outback. In true ‘road movie’ fashion, her physical journey also comes with a journey of self-discovery and healing. She encounters a variety of familiar Australian characters as she drives across the country with her trusty dog.

Kinetics

By Sue Wylie. MANPAC Community Partnership. Directed by Kim Angus. Fishtrap Theatre, Mandurah Performing Arts Centre. May 9-12, 2019

Kinetics, being performed for the first time outside the UK, at the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre, is a true story of a woman in her fifties, with Parkinson's Disease, who encounters a teenage boy, who is into Parkour.

Produced by Sue Edge, who also has Parkinson’s disease, the show seeks to spread awareness of the condition, while also being a fascinating show. Both named Sue, and both teachers, the writer, and producer have quite a few things in common, including being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at 50 and 51 respectively.

Petula Clark, Once More With Love

Concert Hall, Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), Brisbane – 5 May 2019

It’s obvious that Petula Clark adores performing and loves her audiences – and that, when it comes to ‘retirement’, she subscribes to the Dame Judi Dench tenet – which is, WHY? At a sprightly 87, Petula has excelled in every aspect of the entertainment business. Her career spans eight decades, and includes war-time radio, early TV variety, feature films, stage musicals, and of course popular music – the field where she famously reinvented herself before the term was a wink in Madonna’s eye.

Four Dogs and a Bone

By John Patrick Shanley. Q44 Theatre Company. Abbotsford Convent, St Heliers Street, Abbotsford. 9 -26 May 2019

It’s a play about ‘Hollywood’.  The ‘bone’ in question is a low-budget movie already in production.  The ‘dogs’ are four competing and very self-interested parties: the fading lead actress, Collette (Tania Knight), the beset producer, Bradley (Kostas Ilias), the ambitious ingenue (does anyone say ‘ingenue’ anymore?) Brenda (Xanthe Gunner) and the ‘sensitive’ writer, Victor (William Atkinson).  Bradley’s problems, apart from wrangling these people and a painful anal problem, is that it’s a seven-mill

The Honouring

Created and performed by Jack Sheppard. Yirramboi Festival. La Mama Courthouse. May 7 – 11, 2019

The Honouring is a courageous and hauntingly orchestrated hybrid piece of theatre created and performed by Jack Sheppard (Kuttjar Clan of the Gulf of Carpentaria), as part of the biennial Yirramboi Festival, currently on at La Mama Courthouse.

Folk

By Tom Wells. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. Director: Terence O’Connell. 3 May – 1 June 2019

Sister Winnie’s regular Guiness and singalong evening with middle-aged guitarist Stephen is abruptly shattered when 15-year-old Kayleigh hurls a brick through the front window of the nun’s house in the deprived Yorkshire seaside town of Withernsea. There’s nowt so queer as Folk, as the saying goes, and playwright Tom Wells takes pleasure in introducing us to three of the queerest, most mismatched characters ever to share space in the same play.

Small Mouth Sounds

By Bess Wohl. Darlinghurst Theatre Company. Director: Jo Turner. Eternity Playhouse, Sydney. 3 - 26 May, 2019

The small mouth sounds referred to in Small Mouth Sounds by American Bess Wohl are conversations, everyday chatter. All speech has been banned from the group of six starting a weeklong silent retreat at a hippie institute somewhere in country Australia. So how will that go? No chatter and only the occasional grunt or snatched comment among the cast for the majority of the play will lead to nothing much? Not at all: the audience must work hard to get the full story on everyone.

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