Reviews

The attention to detail in the set immediately impressed. On the walls of the scout hall (which was the location for meetings of the Coriole Shire Australia Day Committee) were the most authentic looking Girl Guide honour roles, knots and a faded dusty portrait of the Queen.

Nakkiah Lui’s new play delights with the same deliciously naughty racial lampooning as her work on ABC TV’s Black Comedy.  Here race and cultural background clashes with class as we open in the upmarket holiday home of an affluent Aboriginal family, and what promises to be an awkward Christmas reunion.

This merry production of the cheerful operatta Die Fledermaus is a welcome addition to Canberra Opera’s reputation. The operetta has moved from nineteenth-century Vienna to the 1950s in London, with the characters enjoying a reprieve from war-time rationing and availability of goods. The von Eisensensteins, Gabriel (played by Andrew Barrow) and Rosalinde (played by Keren Dalzell) live in a London apartment and their maid Adele (played by Madeline Anderson) shows how she is not awed by wealth, but sees it as an opportunity to make the most of life.

Though this was a revival, I hadn’t seen it before, so it was a new experience. And what an experience it was! Though I didn’t agree with everything, it was certainly not dull.

The huge structure revolved to reveal different indoor and outdoor scenes. This was used very cleverly. Cavalleria Rusticana opened at the final scene with Mamma Lucia weeping over the body of her son, Turridu, while Turridu sang his serenade to Lola off stage. The stage revolved and the action proceeded.