Reviews

Ivan Menchell’s 1990 play about three widows who meet monthly for morning tea before visiting their husbands’ graves is probably not the best choice for any recently widowed woman, but this reviewer is certainly glad she made it to the Saturday matinee of this endearing play.

The original Odd Couple was written by Neil Simon in 1965 and made into a film three years later. Then in 1985, he wrote a female version where the inter – reactors are women who meet on a Friday night to play Trivia Pursuit at Olive’s house. When Florence arrives late after being thrown by her husband, Olive invites her to stay at her house to give her time to settle down and recover. Where Olive is messy, untidy and unconcerned about the state of her apartment, Florence is the very opposite, with an obsession verging on mania for good food and impossible cleanliness.

It’s more than a decade since Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, gave a speech that made global headlines. She took the podium during Question Time to respond to a motion proposed by the then leader of the opposition, Tony Abbot, which accused her of sexism and being unfit to lead. Her words that followed – her ‘misogyny’ speech – became instantly famous and globally viral.

As the name indeed suggests, this is a re-working of Lewis Carroll’s much-loved Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Created almost 160 years ago, Carroll was even then accused of indulging in too many magic mushrooms to create the outlandish series of stories. It is no wonder as it peopled with exaggerated characters in increasingly weird and outrageous situations conversing in language peppered with silly puns, word-play and made-up words, and it might even be said that this version takes this hallucinogenic notion a few steps further.