Reviews

Home is a ’grand scale’ theatrical experience that both astonishes and amuses. Whilst it makes one think about what makes a home, it also makes one think about just what makes theatre.

Conceived by Geoff Sobelle, after discovering different layers of floor covering in the kitchen of his one hundred-year- old Philadelphian house, the production is a tribute to innovative contemporary stagecraft, meticulous choreography and timing and the creative inspiration of collaborative theatre-making.

The Australian Shakespeare Company production of Macbeth is well and efficiently presented within the beautiful environment of the edge of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens.  Stunning huge trees including a magnificent pine serve as an excellent backdrop.  When expertly lit they enhance the simple set - mostly comprising an offset castle structure that also serves as wings. All the action is smoothly presented on a simple open-air stage.

This sumptuous production, transplanted by Director Gale Edwards from Paris to the decadence of the Weimar Republic, will dazzle anyone who has not seen it before – but on opening night the performances did not generate the ‘fireworks’ that exploded over the Harbour a few days before.

Wicked was first performed in San Francisco, USA, in the summer of 2003, before transferring to Broadway later that year, where it is still running. It opened in the West End of London in 2006, arriving on our shores in Melbourne in 2008. It’s an alternative telling of the backstories in the land of Oz, which first came to fame through the L Frank Baum children’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, and then through the immensely popular 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.