Reviews

The latest offering from The Street’s First Seen program, Peter Cook’s first play Breaking the Castle, is an extraordinary and beautiful portrait of an actor’s life as he descends into and then overcomes meth addiction. It begins with what seems like a conceit: David Smith (played by Cook) as an actor, talking about how in control and connected with the audience he is and more tenuously, how the audience themselves were reacting.

Every Aussie of a certain generation is aware of Schapelle Corby. We’ll never forget the distinctive name, the drugs charges, the Indonesian trial, the colourful family, the unscrupulous lawyers – and of course, the role that news media played in determining how we viewed all of these aspects of the case.

Laughing Horse Productions’ Jekyll and Hyde opened on Friday 13th, which seemed a perfect date for the opening of this very dark musical. Unfortunately, was the day that the Prime Minister announced the recommendation that large events be cancelled following the weekend - setting off a rash of cancelled shows, uncertainty and fear within the theatre community.

This musical is like a good slow cooking recipe. You add all the ingredients, leave it in a pot and come back hours later, where the lamb is falling off the bone. Many aspects of the production are very tasty. The music by Jason Robert Brown has a mixture of folk, country, pop and operatic influences. It’s easy to see why It won Tony Awards in 2014 for its score and orchestrations. The five piece ensemble assembled for the production by Musical Director Geoffrey Castles allowed the musical juices to stew sumptuously, as the temperature on stage heated up.