Reviews

Pinoy Street Party with DJ Kuya James

OzAsia Festival 2021. Lion Arts Centre, Adelaide. Oct 29, 2021

Pinoy Street Party is the brainchild of celebrated modern music maestro DJ Kuya James. This celebration of ‘everything that is Pilipino’ is a music feast incorporating traditional as well as modern Pilipino and Australian music, including Indigenous dance, hip-hop, poetry, and R & B. Pinoy Street Party was first successfully staged in Darwin and now, for the first time, in Adelaide as part of this year’s Oz-Asia Festival.

Queer as Flux

By Stace Callaghan. Directed by Leah Mercer. The Blue Room Studio, Perth Cultural Centre, WA. Oct 26-Nov 13, 2021

Queer as Flux is a dynamic, fascinating and heartwarming solo show, written and performed by Stace Callaghan at the Blue Room Studio. 

The product of The Nest Ensemble, Queer as Flux is based on Stace’s life experience, including transitioning throughout life, from football-mad tomboy, to school captain of a Brisbane Girls’ School, to proud lesbian and now a trans man, who uses they/them pronouns, told with a realisation that everyone is transitioning at all times, including ageing parents, and society itself.

Fourthcoming

Writer/Co-Director: Nelle Lee. Co-Director: Nick Skubij. Shake & Stir and QPAC. Cremorne Theatre, QPAC. 23 Oct – 7 Nov 2021

Sex, liquid courage and finding Mr. Right are age old themes in the dating game, but they’ve been given an up-to-the-minute contemporary and interactive twist in Nelle Lee’s  Fourthcoming, a riotous rom-com from the Shake and Stir team. This is one show where you are encouraged to use your phone, checking in with the app on the seat in front of you, and participating in the action and end result.

Stones in His Pockets

By Marie Jones. Presented by Joh Hartog Productions. Bakehouse Theatre, Adelaide. Oct 27 – Nov 6, 2021

Charlie Conlon is trying to persuade the food van to give him a second pudding when he first meets Jake Quinn. They are both extras on a Hollywood movie set in the lush green south-west of Ireland, along with what seems like half the town, most of which are related to Jake in some way. With a film crew being the buffer between the US leads and the local extras keen to earn their ‘forty quid’ whether or not the sun shines, there are some fifteen characters here.

Perahu-Perahu

OzAsia Festival 2021. Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide. Oct 27-30, 2021

Perahu-Perahu, which means ‘boats’ in Indonesian, is an intriguing glimpse into Indonesian history and culture told through music and wayang kuli (Indonesian shadow puppetry) with a modern twist.

It explores the precarious relationship between humans, their treatment of mother earth and outlines the history of travel across the waters between Indonesia and Australia, all told with the sea as a linking element.

Merrily We Roll Along

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by George Furth. Luckiest Productions and Hayes Theatre Co. Directed by Dean Bryant. Choreography by Andrew Hallsworth. Musical Direction by Andrew Worboys. October 21 - November 27, 2021

Famished music theatre fans, kept away from live theatre by the pandemic, will have much to feast upon in this banquet of tasty morsels.

The company, which had staged one preview when the dreaded delta virus closed down Sydney, have been able to spend the extended break continuing to rehearse at times, bringing a rich depth to the characters that might not normally be available in a tight Hayes Theatre rehearsal schedule.

Open Homes – Journey to the South

OzAsia Festival 2021. Presented by Jeffrey Tan & No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability. Various locations in SA. Oct 22 – Nov 7, 2021

Open Homes is a wonderful initiative and collaboration between Jeffrey Tan from Singapore and South Australia’s No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability and is one of the highlights of this year’s Oz-Asia Festival. As the program notes state, ‘Behind every door of every home, there are stories that might never be told. Open Homes is a chance to hear them.

Clock for No Time

By Michele Saint-Yves. Rumpus, Bowden, SA. October 19-31, 2021

Clock for no Time is written, directed, and in the first act, narrated, by Michele Saint-Yves, who herself has an acquired brain disorder and is a recent graduate in medical neuroscience. This is a mesmerising, thought-provoking, inclusive piece of theatre.

Wait Until Dark

By Frederick Knott. Fremantle Performing Artists. Directed by Brenton Foale. The Actors Hub, Kensington St, East Perth, WA. Oct 21-30, 2021

The thriller Wait Until Dark, produced by Fremantle Performing Artists, is playing to capacity audiences at The Actors Hub studios.

Unusual to see thrillers on stage, this 1966 classic keeps its audience on the edge of their seats, while it features a bravura role for its leading actress. 

Suzy Hendrix is a blind Greenwich Village housewife who becomes the target of three con-men searching for a doll, containing drugs, which Suzy’s husband has unwittingly trafficked from Canada, for a woman who has since been murdered. 

Somewhere, Everywhere, Nowhere

By Alison Currie and Yui Kawaguchi. OzAsia Festival, The Space, Adelaide Festival Centre. Oct 21-23, 2021

Australian dance-maker Alison Currie aims to shift the boundaries of dance by incorporating inanimate objects within her praxis.  Berlin-based dancer Yui Kawaguchi visited Adelaide and performed during OzAsia in 2018, when the two women met and began a working relationship.  They have been collaborating remotely in the intervening years, exchanging stories and phone calls as well as holding video rehearsals.

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