Reviews

Shirley Valentine

By Willy Russell. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. Director: Mark Kilmurry. 3 May – 9 June 2018

‘Marriage is like the Middle East – there’s no solution!’ So says 42-year-old Shirley Bradshaw in her typical, straightforward Liverpool manner. Once she used to be Shirley Valentine, before marriage to Joe and before her two children, Brian and Millandra. Now she talks to the walls in her Liverpool semi-detached home, one among whole rows in the streets outside.

Twelfth Night

By William Shakespeare. Queensland Theatre. Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC). 28 April - 19 May 2018

Twelfth Night is the classic romantic comedy involving mistaken identity, written by Shakespeare as post-Christmas entertainment around the turn of the 17th century. Based on a couple of existing sources, and written after the intensity of Hamlet, this light entertainment with its evergreen themes of love and topsy-turvy mayhem must have been a positive relief for the writer and a delight for audiences.

The Bleeding Tree

By Angus Cerini. A Griffin Theatre Production. Director: Lee Lewis. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre. 9-12 May 2018

The play opens with a loud, long, resonant gunshot in complete darkness, so without warning that the chattering audience was jolted into silence. The lights rise so slowly that at first they are overpowered by the exit signs. Your eyes gradually adjust before being able to make out anything at all. Over a few minutes during the opening dialogue, three faces resolve out of the gloom: a mother and two daughters. A vicious man arrives home drunk, ready to abuse his family. There’s a confrontation, and just like that, he’s dead.

Sense and Sensibility

By Kate Hamill, based on the novel by Jane Austen. State Theatre Company of SA. Dunstan Playhouse. May 4 – 26, 2018.

I love Austen’s novels and must admit to anxiety about seeing an adaptation. However, my fears were ill-founded as this production is fabulous.  Kate Hamill’s adaptation is true to the spirit of Austen, and the production is fast-paced, extremely funny and clever.

Almost Face to Face

Written & performed by Stephen House. Directed by Peter Green. The Butterfly Club, Carson Place, Melbourne CBD. 8 – 12 May 2018

There’s no doubt – and it’s not saying anything new – that Stephen House is a superb raconteur.  With a subtle change of voice or tone, a flick of the eyes, an inclination of the head, an unsteady step or a rapid move across the bare stage he conjures up characters and places vividly.  They are the characters and places of the Dublin demi-monde – addicts, prostitutes, rent boys, dealers and drifters. 

Cinderella and Scheherazade

Queensland Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Richard Davis. Host: Guy Noble. Piano: Calvin Abdiel. Concert Hall, QPAC. 6 May 2018

Fairytales have been the inspiration for some of the world’s most beloved ballets, musicals and films - Disney built a franchise on them - so when the QSO decided to theme their Music on Sundays program around music that was inspired by them, there was no shortage of material. This 90-minute program, which offered the work of eight composers, was not only diverse in its selection but populist.

The Aspie Hour

The Butterfly Club, Melbourne. May 3 – 5, 2018

Two people sharing their experiences of Asperger’s Syndrome through cabaret. The show was so popular in the 2018 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, they added three extra performances at The Butterfly Club after the festival finished. Originally developed for the Ballarat Cabaret Festival in 2017, Aspie Hour creators and performers Sophie Smyth and Ryan Smedley open our minds and hearts to what it’s like to live with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Big Fish

Music & Lyrics by Andrew Lippa. Book by John August. Phoenix Ensemble (Qld). April 27 – May 19, 2018.

A folksy fairy tale about the importance of not being earnest, Daniel Wallace’s 1998 best-seller Big Fish has swum upriver from page to screen to stage, first inspiring a 2003 Tim Burton movie, then a 2013 Broadway musical and now playing at Phoenix Ensemble as the Queensland premiere, directed by Tammy Linde. 

Camelot

By Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music). Old Mill Theatre, South Perth, WA. Directed by Neroli Sweetman. May 4-12, 2018

Old Mill Theatre is reviving the classic musical Camelot by Lerner and Loewe, in South Perth, in a beautiful looking production that feels good and sounds lovely.

George Boyd creates a vast Camelot on the pocket size stage, his beautiful sets supplemented by stunning projections co-ordinated by Blake Jenkins. Michelle Sharp’s costumes are picture-book polished and pretty - especially the gorgeous gowns on Guinevere.

Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and America

By Stephen Sewell. University of Adelaide Theatre Guild. Little Theatre, University of Adelaide. 5 - 19 May, 2018

As part of their 80th Anniversary program, the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild has produced Stephen Sewell’s acclaimed 2003 play Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and America.

Myth, Propaganda is an epic didactic play involving an Australian academic in an American university whose life is destroyed due to his political contention and comparison between the mythic structures of Nazi Germany and contemporary America, post 9/11.

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