Reviews

The WA Premiere of Polly Stenham’s That Face is currently playing at Stirling Theatre. This fascinating, little-known play, which had a West End run, and was written when the author was just nineteen, features a strong cast.

Fifteen year old Mia is at boarding school and has her mother’s drugs. When she over-doses a younger student during a hazing, Mia is sent home pending expulsion. We find her mother and brother. He has left school to care for her as she is alcoholic and mentally unstable and their relationship is unhealthy on many levels.

In Your Face Theatre is an ensemble that truly lives up to its name. Trainspotting Live is an immersive theatrical experience like no other. Trainspotting has not only returned as a film sequel but also a live stage production. All the confronting elements of the original story are transformed into a highly visceral experience of the personal degradation related to a drug addicted existence. No audience member is spared direct and palpable contact with this frequently distasteful, yet mesmerising material.

Two privileged white male gays are outraged when they see faggots listed in a pub menu.  Never mind it’s that old English dish of meatballs.  Set in their cramped if million door Darlinghurst flat, with a view of the Mardi Gras Parade tonight from their bathroom, Declan Greene’s furious farce is a very funny attack on PC preciousness around LGBTIQA identities. 

Wicked is renowned for lavish Broadway spectacle, so it’s pleasing that the huge challenge to pare the hit Broadway musical back for Sydney community theatre, especially in the notoriously challenging Sutherland Entertainment Centre, is in safe hands with Miranda’s scenic wizards Bob and Col Peet. They simplify the physical setting effectively, while atmospherics are achieved through lighting, LED, projection and animation in a symbiotic collaboration with Technology Director Chae Rogan (supported by Adam Ring and Robert Mason).