Reviews

4000 Miles

By Amy Herzog. Sydney Theatre Company. Directed by Kenneth Moraleda. Wharf 1 Theatre. February 12 - March 23, 2024

One of the quirky things about growing old is the loss of inhibitions. There is nothing like being skewered by your grandmother with a home truth.

 In 4000 Miles 91-year-old Vera Joseph (Nancye Hayes), shoots from the hip when her grandson Leo (Shiv Palekar) turns up unannounced to her New York home on his bike, after suffering from an undisclosed trauma during his long road trip.

Vera finds a packet of condoms in his bag and expresses surprise that the box is unopened.

The Wharf Revue: The End Of Wharf As We Know It

Created by Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phillip Scott. Co-Directed by Jonathan Biggins and Drew Forsythe. Presented by QPAC and Soft Tread. Playhouse, 11 - 16 February 2025

It’s a sad time for political satire in Australia as the Wharf Revue team is presenting their final show ever (unless we can convince them to pull a Farnsie and treat us to a couple more farewell tours). They may be leaving us after 25 years of outstanding work lampooning the powerful and inept, but they’re doing it on a high note. The End Of Wharf As We Know It is a masterclass in caricature, with witty song lyrics, sharp dialogue, and fun dance sequences.

FAME – The Musical

Conceived and developed by David De Silva. Book by Jose Fernandez. Lyrics by Jacques Levy. Music by Steve Margoshes. The Spotlight Theatrical Company. Directed by Stuart Morgan. Music Director: Matt Pearson. Choreographers: Dean Giltinan and Jam Marshall. The Halpin Auditorium. 7th Feb – 1st March, 2025

Over the past 7 years or so I have enjoyed every one of my reviewing assignments at Spotlight. The company always manages to deliver stellar community entertainment with an emphasis on energy and excellence. While Fame doesn’t quite match some of their more extraordinary productions in the past, there is still much to be proud of and plenty of enjoyment for the opening night audience.

Homophonic!

Presented by Miranda Hill, Theatre Works and Midsumma Festival. Theatre Works, 14 Acland Street, St Kilda. 7-8 February 2025.

Homophonic! is a celebration of queer chamber music and is now in its 15th year. This year the poignancy of this event is especially palpable given the rise of a political climate that aims to marginalise queer folk. The importance of celebrating and acknowledging queer talent could not be more urgent. Homophonic! also features the extremely talented singers from the vocal ensemble, Consort of Melbourne, whose angelic voices help to bathe the audience in this uplifting experience.

Anatomy of a Suicide

By Alice Birch. Heartstring Theatre. Director: Katie Smith. The Meat Market, 2 Wreckyn Street, North Melbourne. 5-16 February, 2025

Alice Birch’s script requires split second timing of the dialogue, staging multiple scenes at once, a plethora of characters doubling and managing constant moving between time periods. The script reads more like an avantgarde film script specifically designed to test the editor’s skill. The Director, Katie Smith, accepted the challenge to tell this/these stories of the intergenerational impacts of mental illness.

The Flea

By James Fitz. New Theatre, Newtown. Mardi Gras. Feb 4 – Mar 8, 2025.

The Flea brings a welcome, madly inventive young director and designer to Sydney’s New Theatre with Patrick Kennedy. 

By British playwright James Fitz, it’s about the very exclusive homosexual brothel in Cleveland Street, London, which in 1889, when stumbled upon by police, threatened to bring down its aristocratic gay clientele, including, as rumoured, the grandson and heir of Queen Victoria, Prince Eddy.

Macbeth

By William Shakespeare. Presented by Glenn Elston and The Australian Shakespeare Company. Directed by Glenn Elston. Southern Cross Lawn, Royal Botanic Gardens,100 Birdwood Avenue, Melbourne 31 January - 28 February 2025.

This production is a mature and highly refined exploration of the text. The Australian Shakespeare Company exhibits profound knowledge and understanding of the text and the author and delivers an absolutely gripping performance. Elston has taken a very traditional approach to the staging without ignoring its capacity for contemporary appeal. 

Shirley Valentine

By Willy Russell. Tea Tree Players Theatre, Surrey Downs, SA. 5-15 February 2025

Wondering what has happened to her youth and feeling like her family see her as just a servant rather than a wife or mother, Shirley Valentine regularly talks to the wall about her lost opportunities and unhappiness. When a friend of hers invites Shirley to join her on a trip for two to Greece, she leaves a note in the kitchen and flies away for two weeks. There she quickly rediscovers everything she thought was lost and decides to stay on in her Mediterranean paradise.

The Butcher, The Baker…

Writer, Composer & Musical Director Ella Filar. Midsumma Festival and Theatre Works. Explosives Factory, Inkerman Street, St Kilda. 5 – 15 February 2025

Here is a glittering, cynical, even cruel, look at sexual obsession.  It’s a sort of musical, a sort of Singspiele about the tragic consequences of barking up the wrong tree, or the wrong leg – of misapprehension and cross-dressing.  The spirit and the sound, of Kurt Weil and Bertolt Brecht are never far away.  One of the songs in The Threepenny Opera, for instance, is ‘Song of Sexual Dependency’ - very much to the point with The Butcher…  

Three Sisters

By Anton Chekhov, a version by Victor Kalka. Produced by Virginia Plain, in association with Flight Path Theatre. Directed by Victor Kalka. Flight Path Theatre, Marrickville, Sydney. 5-15 February, 2025

It’s not often that one of the great plays of literature, by Anton Chekhov in his 1901 prime, is presented in your local theatre. If you live in the vicinity, I recommend that you hasten to the cute little theatre in the middle of Marrickville before it has gone, just like the teetering lives of the three Prozorov sisters in the play. Olga, Marsha and Irina pine to return to their hometown, Moscow, but everything seems to stop them. Don’t delay your visit to these ‘Three Sisters’.

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