Reviews

Panoptican Collective has extremely admirable goals that aim to increase social responsibility and raise awareness about social injustice. These objectives are fully fleshed out in this play. Six female stories trace the very long history of the abuse, oppression and marginalisation of women across of range of social and political contexts. Each story is inspired by literary and historical figures and told entirely from the perspective of the individual experience of persecution.

Poppy Seed Festival ends its inaugural (and interesting) event with Vicky Jones’ much lauded play The One. Truth be told, the play itself is a pale imitation of Edward Albee’s magnificent Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?. But where the latter seethes and boils with molten lava of vitriol, the best The One can do is simmer, off the boil, without ever threatening or going over the edge, and so we remain always as observers, never involved in the tension or in any danger.

The first season of this double bill was so successful, that Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Victoria decided to repeat it at a different venue. Of course not everyone was available, so there were some performers new to their roles and, as it had been double cast in the first instance, many were new to me.

The Contrabandista was just as much fun the second time around, and the new Rita, Alison McIntosh-Deszcz, sang well and looked lovely. Her new Vasquez, Danny Starr, a musical theatre performer, has a very good voice, but struggled with the high tessitura.

It was his home town. His father, wife, daughter and close friends were in the audience. Hugh Jackman sang and spoke as if he was in a small cabaret venue, not a vast arena filled with ten thousand disciples.

His rendition of I’ve Been Everywhere Man was most apt. His father took his family on endless road trips around Australia as children. The song’s lyrics includes the suburb where he was raised … Turramurra.