Reviews

Darylin Raymondo is a fine director, and her reputation was made with her stunning production of Next To Normal in 2014. It wowed audiences at both Geelong and The Hayes in Sydney. It is only natural that expectations would be high for her anticipated production of Dogfight – a 2012 off-Broadway musical based on a 90s film. The cast is mostly excellent, the music is entertaining if not especially memorable, and there is a strong – if predictable – book.

It’s not often one sees a play featuring a ‘live’ steam train (if ever) but Emily Vascotto’s The Train Tea Society gave audiences that undeniable thrill not once but twice during this sweet and affectionate work set in Ipswich during the First World War. Staged in association with the Queensland Pioneer Steam Railway at the historic Swanbank Railway Station, this site-specific piece of theatre presented as part of the Anywhere Festival convincingly transported us back to an earlier time.

This engrossing production of Bad Jews is played out on a charming set, designed by Jacob Battista, of a tiny apartment that feels part pressure cooker part fish bowl.  It is a studio apartment in New York, New York with a bathroom that overlooks the Hudson River.  Four characters, three of whom who have been rendered emotionally raw from the grief of their grandfather’s recent demise, interact through the malaise of a kind of fraught cabin fever. 

There’s no denying the appeal of Little Shop of Horrors. It may be based on a B grade movie, but it has an A+ grade score and book - arguably the best work ever from Ashman and Menken, and real depth in the subtext and life lessons. In short, it’s a bloody good musical.