Reviews

Noëlle Janaczewska is an Australian playwright, poet and essayist who specialises in writing about people and events that “have been overlooked or marginalised in official records”. In this play she has taken as her inspiration the history of Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest and through it “traces the roots of Sydney’s early Modernist thinking and offers a fresh take on Emu Plains in the 1950s”.

Waiting at the tram stop after a performance of Moral Panic, I overheard a young woman say excitedly to a friend, ‘Did you see that?  It just got to me on so many levels!’  I agree.  Moral Panic may not make ‘sense’ in terms of the logic the playwright and director Bridget Balodis wish to eschew, but the play does ‘get to you on so many levels’.  There are passages where I struggled to get the literal meaning of what was happening on stage, but something – a line, an image, a suggested emotion – keeps gett

As the name of the musical implies, Seussical Jr is designed for young performers up to the age of 16 and is based on many Dr Seuss stories such as “Horton Hears a Who”, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “Horton Hatches the Egg”. Thus Horton the Elephant, The Cat in the Hat and all the favourite Dr Seuss characters come to life onstage in this musical extravaganza with the young performers. Even for those who have not read all the books, the characters are intriguing to follow with the singing, costumes and movement.

Little Triangle’s production of the Stephen Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along was a pleasant surprise at Sydney’s Depot Theatre earlier this year. With a young cast, the company staged a wonderful show, demonstrating care and affection for the difficult musical gem.