Reviews

Zaffé

Conceived and directed by Stéphanie Ghajar. Produced by Lara Week and Stéphanie Ghajar & Collaborators. Melbourne Fringe Festival. The Tower – Malthouse, 113 Sturt Street Southbank. 5-15 October 2023.

The tag line “You’re invited to a Middle Eastern wedding party like no other” captures this event in a very precise manner. Attending this performance is much more like attending a celebration and blends immersive and participatory theatre in a vibrant and extremely entertaining manner. Zaffé is a traditional ceremony that is hosted by Ghajar and her collaborators.

Swan Lake

The Australian Ballet. The Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre. Oct 7 – 14, 2023

Swan Lake is a dazzling jewel in the Australian Ballet’s repertoire and the culmination of their sixtieth year of being Australia’s premiere national ballet company!

I still have vivid memories of the famous production starring Marilyn Rowe as Odette and Lucette Aldous as Odile and thought I would never see a production so full of exquisite dancing, life and emotion, until now.

A Vicar of Dibley Christmas: The Second Coming

Adapted by Ian Gower and Paul Carpenter from the TV series by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer. Tea Tree Players. Tea Tree Players Theatre, Surrey Downs, SA. Oct 4-14, 2023

Tea Tree Players presented The Vicar of Dibley last year with a sell out season, so it makes perfect sense to present its sequel, A Vicar of Dibley Christmas: The Second Coming this year, reprising the original cast.

The play is based on the episodes "Dibley Live" and "Winter", in which the villagers set up a radio station and put on a nativity play at Owen's farm.

Singin’ in the Rain

Screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Songs by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. Northern Light Theatre Company. Shedley Theatre, Elizabeth SA. 6-21 October 2023

‘Be an actor, my son – but be a comical one’. More than just a line from the famous slapstick song ‘Make ‘Em Laugh’, this feels like the foundation of Northern Light’s bold production of Singin’ in the Rain.

Douglas Rintoul: Brave and Bold

Written by Douglas Rintoul. Melbourne Fringe. The Corner Store, Festival Hub, Trades Hall, Cnr Lygon & Victoria Sts Carlton, Vic. 4-8 October, 2023

What do you do when you have been to WAAPA and are a musical theatre tragic who is “relatable, charming and coy” but your pursuit of perfection and the auditions don’t quite go the way you want? Obvious- you make your own show which is ironic, thoughtful, a little bit cutting and most of all funny.

Constellations

By Nick Payne. Presented by Artefact Theatre. Melbourne Fringe. Directed by Matthew Cox. fortyfive downstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne. 4-14 October 2023

Constellations is a complex play about the mysterious nature of the universe, time and especially destiny. Marianne (Bridie Pamment) and Roland (Mark Yeates) are a couple who meet and fall in love, but the fate of their romance is contingent on so many cosmological factors that could make their story very tragic or wonderfully fulfilling. This play imagines this and many other possibilities in between. It thoroughly explores the nuances of the relationship and its potential from many different perspectives.

Iolanthe

The Fairy Opera: Re-Imaged. By W.S Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Sydney. Director: Sarah Pearce: Musical Direction: Tom Doubinski. Assistant Director: Zachary Aleksander. The Governors Centre, Sydney Boys High. October 6 – 8, 2023

A 24-piece orchestra opened the operetta with an extended overture during which projections onto a screen illustrated the back story. With some clever black and white footage, we learnt that the fairy Iolanthe was banished from Fairydom for the crime of marrying a mortal, and her current abode was at the bottom of a stream.

Venus and Adonis

Written and directed by Damien Ryan. Sport for Jove. Seymour Centre, Sydney. September 29 to October 21, 2023.

Damien Ryan has made good use of his years to perfect this triumphant multilayered telling of Shakespeare’s famous epic sonnet. COVID forced Sport by Jove to cancel its staging, and instead they made it into a celebrated film. Now it takes centre stage where it belongs.   

Sticky Beak

Devised & performed by Kimberly Twiner, Jessica Ngaio, Laura Trenerry & Patrick Dwyer. Directed by Lily Fish. Melbourne Fringe Festival. Quilt Room, Trades Hall, Carlton. 4 – 15 October 2023

Sticky Beak is an absolutely delightful show that has you laughing out loud within seconds of its start.  On your typical suburban street – marked out here by no more than a corrugated iron fence, a white picket face and a crumbling brick fence propped up by milk crates – life goes on – and it is brought to life by four wonderful performers. 

This Is Living

By Liam Borrett. Directed by Gavin Roach. Melbourne Fringe Festival. Meat Market - Stables, 2 Wreckyn St, North Melbourne. 05 – 21 October 2023.

Alice (Rebekah Carton) and Michael (Damian Okulic) appear like any ordinary couple with the trials and tribulations of maintaining a relationship. The play revisits a number of contrasting moments in their story: their first encounter, deciding to get married, the birth of their daughter Lily - all intermingled with their moments of division and tension. However, there is nothing ordinary about their tale. As the play unfolds it becomes clear that Michael is, in fact, speaking to the ghost of Alice or that her presence on stage is conjured by his recollections of their relationship.

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