Reviews

The Golden Cockerel began its life as a poem by Alexander Pushkin in 1834, before becoming an opera written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the last opera he completed before his death in 1908.

The opera tells the story of a lazy and gluttonous King who seeks advice from his sons, a general and finally an astrologer. The astrologer offers the King a golden cockerel with the power to foretell events and give warning in case of danger. However, even with the help of the bird, the kingdom goes to shambles and the bird eventually kills the king.

The Botanical Gardens is a fabulous outdoor space that the Australian Shakespeare Company have beautifully carved out for their often-vibrant productions. This show takes a detour from their usual work and focuses on the Mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The bad acting, the ridiculous rivalries and the slapstick humour that characterise the four tradesmen are brought to life on a large scale, and their very questionable theatrical talents are all playfully explored in one big production.

Image: Rose Adams and Brooke Lee.

When Niv (Dushan Philips) is instructed by his brother Sai (Kaivu Suvarna) to use the term “ministers for barking” as the new term for the word ‘dogs’ (as an exercise in adopting new more politically correct terminology) the play exhibits one of its typically amusing and simultaneously thought-provoking pieces of dialogue. In this very insightful play woke politics comes under as much fire as the commonplace assumption of white privilege. 

Did you know that the Army set up libraries in Vietnam? Or that there were civilian women employed to try to cheer young soldiers by just talking to them? Or that a rising young African-American female military strategist had predicted that the Tet Offensive was imminent? Or that when she tried desperately to convince her superiors, they ignored her? These are stories full of confusion, horror, political awakening and also a surprising amount of warmth and humour—you can feel the heart poured into Theatre Travels’ In Their Footsteps.