Reviews

Hänsel and Gretel

By Engelbert Humperdinck and Adelheid Wette. WAAPA Classical Voice Students. Directed by Rachel McDonald with Musical Direction by Jessica Gethin. Geoff Gibbs Theatre, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley, WA. Sep 9-15, 2022

This dark Märchenoper or fairy-tale opera is presented by WAAPA Classical Voice Students and the WAAPA Symphony Orchestra and designed, constructed, and crewed by WAAPA Production and Design students.

One of the interesting aspects of this opera, written in the late 1800s and featuring a sibling pair, is that it was composed by Engelbert Humperdinck with the libretto written by his sister Adelheid Wette. This production has a strong sense of family in many senses of the word.

Our Country’s Good.

By Timberlake Wertenbaker. Canberra Repertory Society, directed by Karen Vickery, assisted by Liz de Toth. Canberra Repertory Theatre, Acton. 8 to 24 September 2022.

Adapted from Tom Keneally’s novel The Playmaker, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good boldly illustrates the harshness inherent in convict life in the inhospitable penal colony for which Governor Arthur Phillip was responsible at Botany Bay.  It also depicts, however fictionally, the governor’s ideal of having the penal settlement transform his prisoners into good citizens ready for egalitarian society rather than merely brutalise them.


School of Rock

Based on the Paramount movie written by Mike White. Book by Julian Fellowes. Lyrics by Glenn Slater. Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Toowoomba Choral Society. Empire Theatres Toowoomba. September 9 – 11, 2022.

When Andrew Lloyd Webber and Julian Fellowes team up, the results of this ultra-conservative British duo, surprisingly, rock. 

The Next Generation School of Rock: The Musical, based on the 2003 comedy starring Jack Black, was embraced wholeheartedly by the Toowoomba Choral Society and hit all the right notes with its enthusiastic audience.

Protein

Autonomous Inventions. The MC Showroom. Director: Clary Riven. 25-27 August 2022

Darby James as Charlie brings a light, flirty touch to this exploration of building a life in the midst of social responsibility, personal meaning, sexual expression, the pressure of a quest for perfection and a search for meaningful connection.

Straight Line Crazy

By David Hare. Directed by Nicholas Hytner. National Theatre Live, filmed at The Bridge Theatre, London. Sharmill Films. In cinemas nationally from 17 September 2022.

Robert Moses, an unelected city planner, was for forty years the most powerful man in New York.  In that time, he built parks, tunnels, bridges and over a thousand kilometres of freeways.  He destroyed swathes of tenements – and thus their often black or other minority communities – and replaced them with ‘public housing’.  In this way, he displaced up to two hundred and fifty thousand New Yorkers and revolutionised city planning in New York and across the US. 

One Act Season 2022

By Macee Binns, Dan McGeehan and Sean Wsislo. Darlington Theatre Players. Directed by Rebecca McRae, Belinda Beatty and Sean Wcislo. Marloo Theatre, Greenmount WA. Sep 2-10, 2022

Darlington Theatre Players' One Act Season 2222 featured three very different, but well performed short plays in a short season at Marloo Theatre.

A Raisin in the Sun

By Lorraine Hansberry. Sydney Theatre Company. Director: Wesley Enoch. Wharf 1 Theatre. August 27 – October 15, 2022

New York critics in 1959 acclaimed Lorraine Hansberry’s classic as the Best Play of the Year.  Only 29, she was the youngest playwright and at that time the first Afro-American to win the award.

Girl From The North Country

Written and directed by Conor McPherson. Music and Lyrics by Bob Dylan. QPAC, Brisbane. From September 8, 2022.

Trying to categorise this show for the clarity of a review is a little like herding cats. It simply won’t go where you want it.

Musical theatre fans should note that it is NOT a musical (nor does it claim to be). The songs are quite separate, sung into old-fashioned stand microphones, and don’t advance the narrative in any way (though sometimes they try to reflect it).

The Importance of Being Earnest

By Oscar Wilde. Roxy Lane Theatre, Maylands, WA. Directed by Tim Riessen. Sep 2-18, 2022

The Importance of Being Earnest is a gorgeously written comedy, and despite being written 128 years ago, is still one of the wittiest plays being performed. Under the direction of Tim Riessen, who is having a very busy year, Roxy Lane takes us back to the late Victorian era and provides lots of laughs with this “trivial comedy for serious people”.

Cruel Intentions The ‘90s Musical

By Roger Kumble, Jordan Ross and Lindsey Rosen. David Venn Enterprises. Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide. Sept 9 – 24, 2022

It is ‘risky business’ to try and transfer an iconic film to the musical stage - so many things can go wrong. Fortunately, they didn’t. Cruel Intentions The ‘90s Musical is a clever reinvention, or, as producer David Venn says, “a love letter to the film”. It brings us all the sex, manipulation and intrigue that made the film a must see.

Subscribe to our E-Newsletter, buy our latest print edition or find a Performing Arts book at Book Nook.