Reviews

Wicked is renowned for lavish Broadway spectacle, so it’s pleasing that the huge challenge to pare the hit Broadway musical back for Sydney community theatre, especially in the notoriously challenging Sutherland Entertainment Centre, is in safe hands with Miranda’s scenic wizards Bob and Col Peet. They simplify the physical setting effectively, while atmospherics are achieved through lighting, LED, projection and animation in a symbiotic collaboration with Technology Director Chae Rogan (supported by Adam Ring and Robert Mason).

The Western Australian premiere of Heathers is playing to packed houses at WAAPA. This year’s Final Year Music Theatre students are outstanding in this very black musical based on the 1980s cult film.

Set on a bright and breezy gymnasium set by Kelly Freegon, colourfully lit by Kristie Smith and featuring powerfully 80s costumes in bright hues, designed by Kaitlin Brindley, the look of the show is strikingly juxtaposed with the dark themes of bullying, teen suicide and high school massacres, incidents of date rape, substance abuse and depression.

A superb cast of fine actors manages to breathe life into a predictable farce that hangs by its fingernails on a writer’s device. Take that novelty away, and the play is more Ray Cooney than Alan Ayckbourn.

Some new playwrights make one long for the days of Harold Pinter, Joe Orton and the great Ayckbourn. All of these esteemed playwrights understood that comedy comes from the tragedy of the human condition and is bedded in truth.

It was an intriguing surprise to find the Adelaide High School Jazz Band performing as part of the Adelaide Fringe cabaret program; an opportunity too good for a reviewer to pass up. How would this music fare when experienced as part of a festival that is simply bustling and bursting with sights and sounds?