Reviews

A new David Williamson play doesn’t seem an obvious first choice for Lee Lewis’ final production as Griffin’s applauded artistic director.  But look again and you’ll see it’s one of Willliamson’s best, most compelling, heartfelt plays in years. 

Family Values centres on Roger (Andrew McFarlane), a retired justice, who with his wife, Sue  (an ever truthful Belinda Giblin), optimistically welcomes home their three feuding children for his 70th birthday. 

This is an enjoyable production of Shakespeare’s comedy and many of the witty elements are beautifully captured. The two leading characters in this production, Benedick (James Martin) and Beatrice (Grace Maddern), are in good hands and the reluctant romance that occurs between them provides much of the amusement in this play.

Independent theatre company French Santa has two productions in this year’s Fringe World Festival, with the first playing in the intimate theatrical space in The Moon Cafe. The quaint, eclectic decor, and messy, but lived in feel, is perfect for this new work set in a share house.

Housemates Ryder and Maya, decide that their third roomie Steve needs “an Intervention”. They want him to stop selling drugs from the house, and his alcohol consumption is excessive, but is it Steve who really requires the intervention.

Jane Harrison’s intriguing new play imagines seven Aboriginal men watching and arguing over the arrival of Arthur Phillip and his ships at Botany Bay in 1788.

They’ve arrived from across country and lead warriors on the ready to give resistance. But first, passing the message stick, they hold a formal council of elders. Another plan eventually wins support: they really pity these ugly looking visitors and, expecting that they pine to return their own country, will welcome them, briefly, to theirs.