Reviews

dog

By shayne. KXT on Broadway, Sydney. 24 May – 8 June, 2024

The downloaded program gives fair warning. ‘The production of dog explores sensitive content and mature themes around Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, depression, mental ill health, bodily harm, alcohol addiction, suicidal ideation, animal cruelty and grief.’ Add long sections of ‘full front nudity’ and off we go.

Ride the Cyclone

By Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell. Director: Richard Carroll. Hayes Theatre. 28 May – 22 June, 2024

Disembodied pieces of rollercoaster rail coil on Benjamin Brockman’s set in a deepening curved void reaching back to a circular screen. Wooden frames surround them. Smokey haze hovers and drifts and loud music thumps as the Hayes Theatre continues its commitment to bringing “the extraordinary to life” in this premiere production of Ride the Cyclone.

Seussical the Musical

By Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. Hills Musical Theatre Company. Model Farms High School Auditorium. May 24–Jun 1, 2024.

Seussical (The Musical) bursts off the pages of your favourite childhood book and onto the stage at the Hills Musical Theatre Company as they take on a rather famous Cat!

It’s like walking into a cartoon with giant sets recycled, lovingly painted, and recreated by the cast and community. It’s bright, vibrant, and fun. It’s everything you want a living, singing, dancing Seussical Musical to be.  

Meurants Lane

By Christopher Yaacoubian. Limelight Department Theatre. La Mama HQ, Carlton, Vic. May 21 – Jun 2, 2024

“Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.” – Holmes. While travelling abroad, writer and director Christopher Yaacoubian felt a longing for his family back home in Sydney. He searches into his Armenian Lebanese roots and respectfully explores the consequences of intergenerational trauma during the civil war (1975), along with themes of loss, grief and sibling rivalry. He decides to write a play. 

Millers Point Songbook

Music and Lyrics by Joanna Weinberg. Director Joanna Weinberg. Garrison Church, The Rocks, Sydney. 24 – 28 May, 2024

Millers Point Songbook celebrates the story of Millers Point through the many people who have made it their home. It grew from a Heritage NSW Community Grant awarded in 2021 to local resident Anne Warr for an “Argyle Place Interpretation Plan”. That plan included some funding for a “theatrical performance” and Joanna Weinberg was invited to write the music and lyrics for a performance which would include members of Choir Rocks, the local community choir. Weinberg’s research led to this amazing musical history of Millers Point and The Rocks.

The Audition

Outer Urban Projects. La Mama Courthouse (Carlton), 22 May – 2 June, 2024; Bunjil Place (Narre Warren), 6 June, & Bowery Theatre (St Albans), 21 June.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”  - Shakespeare in As You Like It

The Audition was conceived by director Irine Vela, based on a series of modern short plays, by a bunch of Australian writers, some from the Melbourne Workers Theatre, including Christos Tsiolkas and Patricia Cornelius, and some more contemporary plays by Sahra Davoudi and Wahibe Moussa. They are bold artistic works on the new evolving working class and the migrant and refugee experiences.

Matriarchs

Devised and choreographed by Olivia Adams. Presented by Metro Arts and Blakdance. New Benner Theatre. 24 – 25 May, 2024

Metro Arts’ exhilarating new festival, DANCE24, made a memorable debut with the premiere of Matriarchs. This contemporary dance performance delved deeply into the experiences of Indigenous Australian women, shedding light on how the lives and struggles of the maternal ancestors have shaped their modern descendants. The piece was profoundly moving, often heartbreaking, yet fiercely powerful, uplifting, and aesthetically captivating.

Back Inn Business

By Tash Erbich. University Dramatic Society. Directed by Tash Erbich. The Centre for Performing Arts, All Saints College, Bull Creek, WA. May 23-25, 2024

Back Inn Business is a World Premiere musical presented by University Dramatic Society for a very short season in the beautiful Centre for Performing Arts at All Saints College. Back Inn Business features a large enthusiastic cast, a quirky storyline and solid production values/

Almost, Maine

By John Cariani. Castle Hill Players. Pavilion Theatre. 24 May to 15 June, 2024.

There’s something magical about the Northern Lights, and they certainly have breathed a little magic into the Castle Hill Players' latest production, Almost, Maine, written by John Cariani.

Here, love is the common theme, presented in 9 tiny pieces (or vignettes) stitched into an unexpectedly poignant night at the theatre. The romantic, dramatic comedy explores various facets of love through interconnected vignettes in the fictional Almost, a small town in Maine, USA. 

Merciless Gods

By Don Giovannoni, based on the novel Merciless Gods by Christos Tsiolkas. Cherry Bomb Theatre Company. The Motley Bauhaus, Elgin Street, Carlton. 23 – 31 May 2024

With a cast of just six, the Cherry Bomb Theatre Company takes on a text that is in itself confronting and difficult, but this cast between them also present twenty characters of varied ages, ethnicity, social class and sexual orientation.  Given the source material – the novel by Christos Tsiolkas – playwright/adapter Don Giovannoni has opted to utilise a number of dramatic forms.  There is no obvious narrative line that runs through the eight segments: some are standard naturalistic scenes, others heightened or poetic reality in vignette or tableau form, others again

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