Reviews

Ignis is the intriguing new show by the ensemble team at Anthropocene Play Company, directed by Bronwen Coleman and written/adapted by Daniel Nellor.

Based on Arthur Schnitzler’s provocative play La Ronde (Round Dance) written in 1897, banned at the time for indecency and for its provocative sexual themes, Nellor has successfully re-written an original dramatic text, set around the southern NSW bushfires in 2019/20, utilising the landscape to explore anxieties, sexual tensions, betrayals, and political cover ups.

Isabella Perversi tells her tale at breakneck speed - as if she (or her character) is in a constant state of incredulous amazement.  ‘This can’t be happening… I can’t believe… ‘  She’s forever the fish out of water, uncertain, struggling to keep up.

Brisbane’s newest theatre company, PIP Theatre, has their raison d’etre embedded in their name: Purpose in Performance. They choose plays with a social conscience and they work with local community groups. In the case of Gordon Graham’s The Boys, it’s charity Micah Projects who run the Brisbane Domestic Violence Service. In his award-winning play, Graham does not glorify violence – and there is very little on the stage.

This is an unapologetically bold and brash story about three women employed in an office who take revenge – accidentally, at first – on the narcissistic misogynist that is their boss. Based on the 1980 movie of the same name, the supposedly feminist outcomes come too late and too light to have any real meaning, drowned in the dazzle of lights, costume, and the music of Dolly Parton.