Reviews

Legally Blonde

By Laurence O’Keefe, Nell Benjamin and Heather Hach. WAAPA. Directed by Crispin Taylor. Geoff Gibbs Theatre, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley, WA. Sep 8-12, 2024

The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts’ production of Legally Blonde is their biggest production of the year. For many years, the combined Second and Third-Year Musical Theatre Students show has been held in an outside venue. Now back on campus, it is perhaps not surprising that this sold out quickly, but it is worthy of the excitement and buzz that surrounds this show.

Love Stories

Adapted by Tim McGarry with additional writing and story by Trent Dalton and Fiona Franzmann. Director and dramaturg Sam Strong. Presented by QPAC and Brisbane Festival. Playhouse Theatre. 08 - 29 September 2024.

Trent Dalton may have reached rock star status in his hometown. The excitement and enthusiasm in the crowd for opening night of Love Stories was electric. The audience wasn’t just at fever pitch because Brisbane is ever so proud of our local boy made good. We had at least seven more paragraphs worth of valid reasons to be so effervescent. 

A Vicar of Dibley Christmas – The Second Coming

By Ian Gower & Paul Carpenter. Adapted from the original TV series by Richard Curtis & Paul Mayhew. Henry Lawson Theatre, Werrington, NSW. Director Rhonda Hancock. 13th -28th Sept, 2024

It’s never easy directing – or acting in – a play based on a television series, especially when the characters are so well-known and quirky, and the play requires two sets used alternatively scene after scene! It works in film, but it’s darn hard in live theatre, especially when one character is required to move between scenes constantly!

Nosferatu

By Keziah Warner. Bad Company Theatre. Tai Gardner and Emma Skalicky (Direction). Finn Carter (Sound design). Katarina Cubit and Chris ‘Wolfe’ McBride (lighting design). Megan Kenna (set). Mads Hillam (Puppetry). The Peacock Theatre. 6-14th September 2024

Nosferatu is a bit hard to explain. Originally it was a 1922 German film, a thinly veiled adaptation of Dracula. Few copies of this influential film exist today because the estate of Bram Stoker sued the production company and had the copies destroyed.

Keziah Warner adapted this story under commission from the Malthouse theatre and was subsequently awarded Highly Commended in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards of 2024.

Prima Facie

By Suzie Miller. National Theatre Live. Sharmill Films. In cinemas nationally from September 20, 2024

Prima Facie is an epic solo performer experience that is akin to climbing Mount Everest and back again. It is a story in two sections, narrated in amazingly fast paced, first-person present tense by Tessa Ensler, an ambitious barrister in her early 30s who has risen from a Luton council estate via Cambridge to an up-market London practice.

It was a success in the West End and on Broadway, won multiple awards, and has alerted the legal profession to address the issues raised by the story.

Requiem For The Earth

By Paco Peña. Brisbane Festival. QPAC Concert Hall. 9th September, 2024

Everyone should experience Flamenco music at least once in their life. The hauntingly beautiful mellifluous melodies, the earthiness of the hand-clapping, the agonizing passion of the singing and the rhythms of the guitars and the percussion are things that cannot be explained – they must be felt. The audience on Monday night certainly felt every moment of the 75 minute performance, resulting in two spontaneous standing ovations. Those of us who were there will carry the entire performance with us forever.

The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals

By Jeff Blim and Nick and Matt Lang. Directed by Micheal Carroll. City of Gosnells Don Russell Performing Arts Centre, Thornlie, WA. Sep 6-14, 2024

Starkids Musicals very much have a cult following, with a good proportion of each audience established fans who already know the show well, and anticipate each moment, occasionally preempting punchlines. All of this Can be a little disconcerting for the “average theatre goer” who may wonder what they are missing. Thankfully, The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals is well directed, staged and performed, so even if you feel you are missing something, there is some good singing to enjoy.

Ordinary Days

Music and Lyrics by Adam Gwon. Directed by Chris Zuber. Presented by The Q – Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. 4 – 7 September 2024

Ordinary Days is a delightful New York musical, full of characters and crackling wit that would be out of place in any other city in the world, from a set piece about getting lost in the Metropolitan Museum to that particular sarcasm that’s as abrasive as it is hilarious. As Adam Gwon’s first piece, here’s a certain hopeful sweetness that I’ve seen in other young people’s work—Greta Gerwig’s film Francis Ha and Vikram Seth’s verse novel The Golden Gate have something of the same feel.

Enemies of Grooviness Eat Sh*t

Performed by Betty Grumble. Created by Emma Maye Gibson. Produced by Thom Smyth / Performing Lines. The Courtyard Theatre, Canberra Theatre Centre. 4 – 9 September 2024

Buckle up, folks. This show is a roller coaster of burlesque, explicit live sexuality, grief, homage, catharsis, performance art history lesson and skyclad pagan rite. Emma May Gibson’s work is a logical extension of the tradition of wild, hippy, witchy emancipated fringe performance art that flourished in the sexual revolution of the 1960s and feminist circles in the 70s and 80s with performers like Carolee Schneeman, Annie Sprinkle and Casey Jenkins.

A Chorus Line

Music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and a book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante. Theatrical. The National Theatre Melbourne, St Kilda. September 7 – 22, 2024.

A Chorus Line presented by Theatrical delivered a captivating performance that showcased the talent and dedication of the cast and crew. While the production had its moments, the overall experience was enjoyable and left a lasting impression. 

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