Reviews

This musical gem beautifully evokes the ghosts of those who once walked the streets of Darlinghurst and Kings Cross just outside the Hayes Theatre itself.  Drawing on Kenneth Slessor’s collection of poems from the 1920-30’s, it’s also another welcome time travel –  reviving as it does an Australian musical successfully premiered 30 years ago.

We’re reminded again about the power onstage of our own Australian voices, the locals which came before us and familiar places which made us both.

Masterclass depicts scenes from a masterclass given by the great opera diva, Maria Callas, at the Juilliard School of Music in 1971. Apart from Callas we meet only three students and an accompanist.

This is a tour de force for the leading lady, as Callas is on the stage for the entire play, and Amanda Muggleton was superb. Only metres from the audience, she never dropped character and alternatively showed the strength and vulnerability of this operatic icon. She was riveting.

On 7 January 1918 supporters of Adela Pankhurst’s WWI anti-conscription cause gathered outside the bluestone walls of the women’s prison at Pentridge to serenade her with socialist songs, cooees, and coloured lights. Adela, who was exiled to Australia when she fell out of favour with her famous UK suffragette family, had been imprisoned for her energetic anti-war campaigning.

Notions of national identity and what it means to be a good - indeed a model - citizen are all around us. Circus Oz believes that these notions should be inclusive - rather than exclusive. It’s no coincidence that they’re running an appeal for the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre, with audience members encouraged to donate money after the show.