Reviews

Dresden

By Justin Fleming. bAKEHOUSE Theatre Company at KXT. Kings Cross Theatre, Level 2, Kings Cross Hotel. June 15 – 30, 2018.

According to Hitler's memoirs, it was his teenage viewing of Richard Wagner’s Rienzi –  about a Roman tribune who led a proletariat revolt against the nobles of Rome – that made him understand for the first time his destiny: to strengthen and unite the German Reich. Hitler had the autographed score of Rienzi with him in the bunker where he took his life in 1945.

Perfect Wedding

By Robin Hawdon. Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre, Adelaide. June 21 – 30, 2018

Marriage is like a hot bath; once you get used to it it's not so hot anymore.” This is the message of the Adelaide Repertory Theatre’s latest offering Perfect Wedding.

Cake

Johanna Allen. 2018 Adelaide Cabaret Festival. June 20-21st 2018

Johanna Allen’s 70-minute show Cake is a salacious celebration of reckless consumption and excess. She is coquettish, bawdy, flippant, flighty and passionate, all within minutes. She gambols through the works of musical geniuses including Cole Porter, Madonna, Abba (a particular favourite of mine in this show), Kylie Minogue and the Eurhythmics, demonstrating a powerful, soaring and compelling vocal range through a myriad of styles including musical theatre, pop, jazz and light opera.

Assassins

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by John Weidman. Black Swan State Theatre Company . Directed by Roger Hodgman. Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of Western Australia. 16 June - 1 July, 2018

When Luke Hewitt steps on to the stage as The Proprietor, in Assassins, in beautiful voice and a sinister sense of fun, he sets the standard for a high quality, crisply directed production, that is cleverly acted and expertly sung.

Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins is a non-linear work in which we meet the assassins and would-be assassins of American Presidents from Lincoln to Reagan.

This Boy’s in Love – Adriano Cappelletta

2018 Adelaide Cabaret Festival. ArtSpace, Adelaide Festival Centre. 20-21 June, 2018.

This Boy’s in Love, written and performed by Adriano Cappelletta, is a ‘gay’ romance. It has been successfully performed and acclaimed at numerous national and international festivals, including the Adelaide Fringe Festival. These current performances of only two shows are essentially a return season, which is fortunate for me and others who have previously missed this highly acclaimed piece of  ‘gay’ theatre’.

Carmen Live or Dead

2018 Adelaide Cabaret Festival. The Banquet Room. Adelaide Festival Centre. June 20 & 21, 2018

Both being married to other partners, it was just a brief affair in the Mexican summer of 1937 between the political revolutionary, Leon Trotsky​, and the artistic revolutionary, Frida​ Kahlo​.  So, what if they had a love-child? Natalie Gamsu​ is the fictitious Carmen Frida​ Leon Davidovich​, a hermaphrodite (or as she reminds us, intersex) who is the central character in Carmen Live or Dead, seeker of love in a world that does not understand what it is to be both male and female.

Ramin Karimloo and Anna O'Byrne

Concertworks. Hamer Hall, Melbourne, June 20, 2018 and State Theatre Sydney, June 23, 2018

I was feeling a bit out of it. Here I was at Hamer Hall to review an Iranian refugee who escaped to Canada via Italy and made it big on Broadway, and I was the only one there who had never heard of him. The audience had high expectations and it didn’t take long for him to meet them completely, and I was soon as big a fan as the rest of them.

Apart from his obvious vocal talent, it was his easy stage manner and the way he made everyone feel he was talking just to them that got everyone in. There was a lot of love in the room.

2018 Melbourne Cabaret Festival Opening Gala

Chapel off Chapel. 19 June – 1 July, 2018

The Melbourne Cabaret Festival returns for its ninth year. The Opening Gala kicked things off with a bang, hosted by second-time Artistic Director, Dolly Diamond. Dolly certainly knows how to work a crowd, getting everyone laughing, cheering and singing along in no time. No one does sarcasm sharper than Dolly.

I Love You Because

Book and Lyrics by Ryan Cunningham. Music by Joshua Salzman. Emma Knights Productions. Goodwood Institute (SA). June 20-24, 2018

It usually takes a lot to impress critics. After all, we see a lot of theatre. On a cold winter’s night in Adelaide this week I attended the preview of Emma Knights Productions’ musical love story I Love You Because and was at first won over by a delicious complimentary lemon cupcake (a typically unique Knights touch) and a glass of wine. But it was the show that really hit the spot. It was a delight.

Brothers Wreck

Written & directed by Jada Alberts. A Malthouse Theatre and State Theatre Company of South Australia Production. Malthouse Theatre, Merlyn Theatre. 8 – 23 June 2018

‘All happy families resemble one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’  So goes Tolstoy’s oft-quoted dictum.  But the indigenous Darwin family in Jada Alberts’ play is worse than unhappy: they are shattered by the suicide of a family member - and their lives are shaped and defined by their indigenous past and present.  (Is it incidental that there is no father figure here?)  The play begins with the discovery of that suicide – a flashback to the main action.  Joey, whom we never see, has hung himself with fishing nets

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