Reviews

St Jude’s Players regularly pack their venue with loyal and enthusiastic patrons and such was the case on the recent opening night of an unusual production for St Jude’s, not its regular fare of drama or comedy, but instead, a musical… in this case, Man of La Mancha.

It is always an exciting time when a new Australian play and playwright arrive on the scene and Elena Carapetis’ The Gods of Strangers has much to recommend it.  In State Theatre Company of South Australia’s world premiere production of this play Carapetis tells the stories she grew up with, setting them in the difficult and to new immigrants, strange, country around Port Pirie.

Carapetis fills her play with believable and engaging characters who carry us along in a torrent of English, Greek and Italian (subtitles are provided).

Ophelia Thinks Harder is the new production by WIT Incorporated, who have taken on the grand task of tackling Jean Betts’ masterfully witty post- modern reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Ophelia, as we know her, famously suicided after being driven mad with grief from the death of her father Polonius, who was killed by her lover Hamlet. Not in Ophelia Thinks Harder - a feisty outlook and a wanton list of recognizable relentless characters all create havoc as they poke fun at gender inequality and cultural misdemeanors.  

It’s always with some trepidation that we approach a modern adaptation of a well-known classic. Reinventing a script from the 1890s and turning it into something that’s relevant and relatable to contemporary audiences is no easy task. It often just feels gimmicky and forced. So it’s with much relief that we see Melissa Bubnic’s reimagined Hedda Gabler doesn’t just do the original Ibsen work justice, it’s also exceptionally relevant to modern Australian society.