Reviews

Nassim Soleimanpour is originally from Iran and is internationally regarded as one of the most exciting and innovative playwrights of modern world theatre. His best-known work, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit has won numerous awards, and was written to ‘travel the world when he couldn’t’. Such issues of displacement and isolation come into play with this current work, titled Nassim, with which he is touring around the world. It is now playing in Adelaide at the OzAsia Festival.

Platinum Entertainment’s Jesus Christ Superstar is set at the Superstar Music Festival, which features the headline acts, Jesus, Judas and Simon Peter. Set in the present day with the set and props including mobile phones, social media references and uber eats, the extended metaphor continues throughout the show without messing with the original script, as the priests become the executives at Priest Records, Pilate is a festival producer and Herod a talent agent. It is a fresh interpretation which adds extra interest for those familiar with the production.

Performed in Arabic, with English surtitles, the Australian premiere of While I Was Waiting is a unique opportunity to gain insight into the very real lives of families caught up in the current Syrian turmoil. Syrian playwright Mohammad Al Attar and director Omar Abusaada powerfully humanise a political situation, giving the audience the chance to interact with the trauma that besets families, by being invited into their living, loving and grieving.

This unusual and informative work of political theatre from Malaysia’s Five Arts Centre is about differing interpretations of history, events and people. It focuses on an important political meeting in Malaysia in December 1955 known as the ‘Baling Talks’, and in particular Chin Peng, the enigmatic leader of the outlawed Malaysian Communist Party.