Reviews

StageArt is a small professional company which is achieving a lot. Having last week presented us with Bare, the Musical, they were now to delight us with Garfield.

A one hour show for kids during the school holidays, this was a hoot. All the animals had tails, and minimal makeup, but it didn’t matter, as each one captured the essence of its character.

The set comprised a door with surrounds, a couple of sections of fence and a box for Garfield to sleep on. Nothing more was required.

Founded in 2016, Artefact Theatre Co. is a fully independent self-funded theatre company. Their latest production is Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest; a play often considered to be one of the wittiest in the English language.

Michael Shafar is Jewish, 27, and writes for The Project. As such, he’s capable of quick-witted quips about today’s hot topics.

When he steps on the stage — tall, good-looking, commanding — Shafar starts by questioning his audience about themselves. Jewish or non-Jewish? Married? Family?

Shafar rarely singles audience members out. Instead, he makes sure everyone feels the show is being explicitly performed for them.

The new play Going Down, by Melbourne writer Michele Lee, is semi-autobiographical. She’s Asian-Australian, like her lead character Natalie. More specifically they’re Hmong-Australian, originally from Laos.

Both Michele and Natalie are seen by their audiences as more Asian than Australian. Natalie may live in hipster Melbourne and write frank books about sex and feminist ideas but people who come to see her want to hear Hmong stories. In many ways, Natalie is actually more Australian than Asian but most people see her the other way around.