Reviews

The Crucible

By Arthur Miller. Directed by Matt Edgerton. Geoff Gibbs Theatre, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley, WA. March 16-22, 2018

WAAPA’s The Crucible, performed by Third Year Acting Students, feels very different to the typical production of Arthur Miller’s classic script, with director Matt Edgerton’s desire to encourage the audience to look at the play with fresh eyes fully realised.

21

Written and directed by Mollie Earnshaw. Hayman Theatre, Curtin University, Bentley, WA. March 18-23, 2018

The new short play, 21, written and directed by Mollie Earnshaw, is presented as part of Curtin University’s Sunday Night and Lunchtime Theatre series.

A very nicely written relationship drama, it tells of a young man Jimmy who contracts penile cancer. Despite the serious subject matter, there is lovely use of light and shade and beautifully drawn likeable characters. Mollie Earnshaw’s writing of dialogue is very clever, especially her use of rapid patter.

Opera By The Lakes

Nyerimilang Hertiage Park East Gippsland. (Vic). March 18, 2018

Opera By The Lakes on Sunday March 18th - what a wonderful day - with the most amazing program performed by singers from Opera Australia and Vic Opera, plus Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Victoria. Patrons came from all over Australia and overseas, including a tour group from Hamilton, New Zealand, waited eagerly to pass through the gates of Nyerimilang Heritage Park to enjoy the vocal talent awaiting them.

Dogfight

Music & Lyrics: Benj Pasek & Justin Paul Book: Peter Duchan. Bankstown Theatre Company. Director: Meg Day, Musical Director: Clare Moroney, Choreographer: Lauren Nalty. Bankstown Arts Centre. March 16 – 24, 2018.

Bankstown’s Dogfight is not just a great show, it’s a powerful and emotional experience.

Meg Day’s direction and set design, Clare Moroney’s musical direction, Lauren Nalty’s choreography, Rod Bertram’s evocative lighting and sound, the orchestra’s playing, and John Plaege’s props all combine to make an effective and professional-looking production. Add to that a cast in which there is not one weak link and you can get ready for the heartstrings to be pulled.

Oedipus Schmoedipus

By post (Zoë Coombs Marr, Mish Grigor and Natalie Rose). The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. 14 March 2018 and touring thereafter

Imagine taking all the “important” plays of the great Western Canon and stripping them right down to the meaty bits—the bits where people die. Well, you don’t have to imagine, because it’s been done already by Zoë Coombs Marr, Mish Grigor and Natalie Rose in Oedipus Schmoedipus.

La Bayadère

Music: Ludwig Minkus. Libretto: Sergei Khudekov & Marius Petipa. Queensland Ballet and Queensland Symphony Orchestra. Director & Choreographer: Greg Horsman, after Marius Petipa. Conductor & Musical Arrangement: Nigel Gaynor. Playhouse, QPAC, 17 March 2018

It’s been nine years since Queensland ballet-lovers have had the chance to see La Bayadère, when Paris Opera Ballet staged Rudolf Nureyev’s production of it at QPAC for the first International Series in 2009.

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

Music: Jimmy Roberts. Book & Lyrics: Joe DiPietro. Savoyards - Name of Project (NoP) initiative (Qld). Director: Gabriella Flowers. Musical Director: Danika Saal. Choreographer: Desney Toia-Sinapati. Star Theatre, Manly. 17 - 24 March 2018

This long-running Off-Broadway revue was a perfect fit for the Savoyards audience - a middlebrow look at male-female relationships presented in a series of sketches and songs that covered nerds on a date, macho posturing, baby-talking parents, geriatric romance and others. Not the wittiest or incisive work in the world, the music mines the pastiche basket and lite rock, the lyrics rhyme (even if falsely at times), but it’s genial and undemanding.

Proof

By David Auburn. FREEFALL Productions. Directed by Derek Walker. The Q, Queanbeyan. 14–17 March 2018 and touring NSW and VIC

David Auburn’s Proof addresses the perennial problem of overestimating our knowledge, particularly our knowledge of others’ limits.

 

human requiem

By Johannes Brahms. Adelaide Festival. Rundfunkchor Berlin. Staged by Jochen Sandig and Sasha Waltz & Guests. Ridley Centre. March 14 – 18, 2018

human requiem (no capital letters) was the most amazing way to finish off the 2018 Adelaide Festival. This was the counterweight to delving the depths with warring kings, revengeful brothers and murderous uncles.

The examination of the human condition continued in the music of The German Requiem by Brahms, which takes its listeners on a journey that reminds us that we are mortal and will therefore die.

There is grief, that this is so, followed by gratitude for the life lived and acceptance that death is part of life, wonder and joy.  

Don Quichotte

By Jules Massenet. Opera Australia. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House. Mar 16 – 28, 2018

Of Jules Massenet’s some 25 operas, Don Quichotte is one of his few to be still produced – and yet until now never in Australia.  

With the name role of Cervantes’ legendary old knight, tilting at windmills, the opera is a star vehicle, so it was a shock on opening night when Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto was announced as ill, and replaced by the young Australian understudy Shane Lowrencev.

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