Reviews

The Western Australian premiere of Heathers is playing to packed houses at WAAPA. This year’s Final Year Music Theatre students are outstanding in this very black musical based on the 1980s cult film.

Set on a bright and breezy gymnasium set by Kelly Freegon, colourfully lit by Kristie Smith and featuring powerfully 80s costumes in bright hues, designed by Kaitlin Brindley, the look of the show is strikingly juxtaposed with the dark themes of bullying, teen suicide and high school massacres, incidents of date rape, substance abuse and depression.

A superb cast of fine actors manages to breathe life into a predictable farce that hangs by its fingernails on a writer’s device. Take that novelty away, and the play is more Ray Cooney than Alan Ayckbourn.

Some new playwrights make one long for the days of Harold Pinter, Joe Orton and the great Ayckbourn. All of these esteemed playwrights understood that comedy comes from the tragedy of the human condition and is bedded in truth.

It was an intriguing surprise to find the Adelaide High School Jazz Band performing as part of the Adelaide Fringe cabaret program; an opportunity too good for a reviewer to pass up. How would this music fare when experienced as part of a festival that is simply bustling and bursting with sights and sounds?

As a novice to the talents of Rufus Wainwright, I arrived at the Festival Theatre not sure what to expect. On seeing a full house of excited attendees, my curiosity was piqued. What a joyous surprise was in store! Not only is Rufus Wainwright a talented and versatile artist, but he is a composer of modern contemporary music and of classical opera. The juxtaposition of presenting his opera Prima Donna, followed by excerpts from his Rufus does Judy show, was stark but uplifting, and reinforced that music as a language is universal in its many forms.