Reviews | Stage Whispers

Comfort Food Cabaret

Michelle Pearson. Adelaide Fringe 2017. The Market Kitchen. 23 Feb - 18 Mar, 2017

At the mention of Comfort Food Cabaret, this reviewer grabbed the opportunity to see this show. Promising to combine everyone’s favourite food with music, this show dishes up the goods in spades.

Michelle Pearson serves a tantalising feast for all five senses - singing and cooking her way through a three-course meal, plated up and fed to the audience. Heaven.

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After Dinner

Written by Andrew Bovell. Directed by Kate Wissell & Joel Jarvis. Presented by StarheART Theatre. Adelaide Fringe Festival. Ambassadors Hotel. 23-26 Feb, 2017.

It’s always a pleasure to witness enterprising young artists forming companies with the aim to provide opportunities for performers to practice their craft in front of audiences (and critics). After Dinner is perhaps an unexpected choice for an Andrew Bovell staging, but StarheART Theatre deserve both encouragement and applause for taking this comedy-of-nightlife-manners, dating from the late 1980s, and breathing a most enjoyable life into it.

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Terminus

By Mark O’Rowe. North of Eight. The Courthouse, North Melbourne. February 21 – March 11, 2017.

A show for the dark-humoured who appreciate quality writing and acting, with a generous splash of violence and a dash of the supernatural.

We join two lonely women and a homicidal maniac on a drama-filled night, venturing from light to darkness, ordinary to fantasy, as they push their limits and make deals with the devil.

We get to know each character intimately, although their names are never revealed. Through a series of monologues, we discover their rationalisation of their actions and eventually how their paths are intertwined.

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Violet – A Musical

Music by Jeanine Tesori. Lyrics & Book by Brian Crawley. Davine Interventionz Productions. Adelaide Fringe. Star Theatre. February 22 – March 4, 2017

Violet is a relatively new American musical, and is a wonderful representation of the types of musicals coming from the Broadway theatre today; that is, not like the usual blockbusters that generally grace our Australian stages.

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Pandora

Shakti and Garage International. Adelaide Fringe. Adelaide Town Hall. 23-25th February, 2017

Shakti is a dancer of Indian and Japanese heritage and the cultural influences are evident in her choice of choreography. Pandora takes us on a journey of self-imposed suppression and the artist uses the myth of Pandora’s Box as a catalyst for her performance.

This venue allows for a vast performing space. Dark lighting with a splash of red illuminates venetian blinds upstage. When open, they reveal Shakti, blindfolded with a red satin sash, her feet shackled and hands bound with handcuffs. She is wearing a black latex corset.

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Tao Dance Theater

Asia TOPA. Choreographer – Tao Ye. Arts Centre Melbourne – Playhouse .22 – 24 January 2017

Melbournians are so privileged to have this new tri-annual Asian Performance Arts Festival in Melbourne; ‘A festival celebrating Australia’s connections with contemporary Asia’.

From China we are honored to experience Tao Dance Theater’s works ‘6’ and ‘8’, performed for us by a marvelous troupe of young Chinese dancers.

As a truly exceptional and unusual experience, hopefully all Melbourne’s young dancers and choreographers will be/have been able to catch a performance.

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Away

By Michael Gow.Sydney Theatre Company/Malthouse Theatre Directed by Matthew Lutton/ Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre. Feb 18 – Mar 25, 2017

Brilliantly acted, with a spectacular set change, but lacking the emotional connection of smaller productions. That was one view which emerged in the foyer of the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre after watching this seminal Australian play, 31 years after it opened at the much cosier Griffin Theatre.

Director Matthew Lutton had the large stage to play with and steered the production more towards its Shakespearean allusions.

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All This Living

Written and performed by Camilla Blunden. The Butterfly Club, Melbourne. February 22 – 26, 2017

All this Living is a complex rich work that touches on the difficult subject of aging. It is particularly relevant to the older woman. Full marks to Camilla Blunden for engaging with focus groups of older women to bring their experience and voices out into the light through this very personal medium of a one-woman performance. All this Living is a fabulous vehicle to open up the subject area and broaden awareness with divergent audiences. It is nothing if not worthy.