Reviews

The Children

By Lucy Kirkwood. Black Swan State Theatre. Directed by Mel Cantwell. Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, WA. Aug 24 - Sep 15, 2024

Lucy Kirkwood is a much-lauded playwright, described as one of the best of her generation, and this production, from Black Swan Theatre, does justice to one of her most well-known plays. Well-acted and thoughtfully directed, this production is well crafted and fascinating to watch.

This is the second production of this play in Perth, the first being Theatre 180’s excellent pre-Covid production, performed in a tiny venue, and unfortunately not widely seen. Black Swan allows this story to reach a bigger audience.

The Volition Project and The Volition Experiment

Created by Theatre Works Early Career Artists Program Cohort 2024 with Stephen Mitchell Wright (Experiment) and Belle Hansen (Project). Explosives Factory, Inkerman Street, St Kilda. 29 August – 7 September 2024

Here are two separate, stand-alone but thematically linked pieces presented principally to showcase the graduates of Theatre Works Early Career Artists Program Cohort.  So we see on stage a variety of sixteen intriguing, attractive, energetic and mostly talented young performers. 

Sunset Boulevard

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Book and Lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton. Opera Australia and GWB Entertainment. Directed bv Paul Griffin. Musical Direction by Paul Christ. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House. August 29 – November 1, 2024

Sunset Boulevard is about a movie star past her prime, trying to reinvent her career by taking a new ill-advised direction.

As per the original movie Norma Desmond is writing a screenplay with herself as a 16- year-old in an adaptation of Salome.

Fun Home

Music by Jeanine Tesori. Book and lyrics by Lisa Kron. Based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. By arrangement with Concord Theatricals. PIP Theatre Milton, Qld. 29th Aug -14th September, 2024

There are musicals that are simply fun, an escape from the world. Then there are those that immerse you so deeply in the world, and what it means to be human, that connect on such a deep level, that your life is somehow changed by an evening’s entertainment. Fun Home sits clearly at the top of the latter group – along with such shows as Next to Normal and Dear Evan Hansen.

Cosi Fan Tutte

By Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. State Opera South Australia with Opera Queensland. Her Majesty’s Theatre, Grote St Adelaide, SA. 29 Aug to 7 Sept, 2024

Cosi Fan Tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart holds a special place in my heart having performed as Roy in the famous Australian play Cosi which explores the patients in a mental asylum during the 1970s rehearsing their own version of this iconic opera!

The opera was performed in 1790 and was one of three written and produced operas in the space of four years. Instead of the usual 7 scenes over 2 acts, set and costume designer Elizabeth Gadsby has set the opera over two acts, in present day, in a villa on the coast of Italy.

Straight from the Strait

Book by Norah Bagiri, after John Romeril. Composer, Co-Librettist, Music Director and Arranger: Rubina Kimiia. Presented by Opera Queensland, Yumpla Nerkep Foundation and QPAC, as part of the Brisbane Festival. Playhouse Theatre, Brisbane. August 28-31, 2024

In 1968 a number of Torres Strait Islanders, working on the Mount Newman Rail Project in WA, broke a world record by laying seven kilometres of track in under 12 hours. How they did it captured the imagination of various indigenous folk, et al, in particular theatremaker and director of the show Nadine McDonald-Dowd as well as Aunty Ruth Ghee, a Meriam Mer woman and original mature-age student from the Aboriginal Centre for Performing Arts.

The History Boys

By Alan Bennett. Hobart Repertory Theatre Company. Beck Goldsmith (Director). Beck Goldsmith and Morgan Steven (set design). The Playhouse Hobart. August 28th – September 7th, 2024

History may be “one fucking thing after another” as Rudge says, but it is also about the individuals who live through it. The History Boys tackles sweeping concepts through the lives of eight boys preparing for entry to Oxford and Cambridge Colleges.

Juxtaposing classic literature with the popular culture, this production is underscored by well curated music of the 1980s. Various other competing forces shape the students; educational philosophies, opposing values and teacher personalities.

Celebrity Theatresports 2024

Director/Co-Producer Julie Dunsmore. Co-Producer Michael Gregory. Enmore Theatre. 25 Aug, 2024

Once a year the stars of Theatresports – and some special guests – take to the stage to raise money for Canteen, the wonderful organisation that helps young people when cancer hits them or members of their family. Celebrity Theatresports celebrates “the opportunity to support, develop and empower young people impacted by cancer” in the way it knows best … by the “joy of improvisation”!

Lost in Yonkers

By Neil Simon. Directed by Karin Staflund. Roxy Lane Theatre, Maylands, WA. Aug 16-Sep 1, 2024

Neil Simon’s American classic Lost in Yonkers may be Roxy Lane Theatre’s most outstanding production to date. This well directed, intelligently performed trip to New York during World War II is charming healthy sized audiences.

When their widowed father is forced to work away from home, teenaged Jay and little brother Artie are sent to live with their little known overly strict Grandmother and their intellectually challenged Aunt Bella.

Bloom

Maxwell Foster and Alex Raineri. Brisbane Music Festival. FourthWall Arts, Brisbane. 25 August 2024.

Where else but the Brisbane Music Festival could you step out to the edge of the City after your morning coffee on a Sunday and enjoy world-class classical and experimental music, plus Australian and World premieres? The festival’s Artistic Director, Alex Raineri and his friend and colleague on the keys, Maxwell Foster, toured the USA in May this year, performing for classical music fans from Chicago and across to Baltimore, where Maxwell is currently based.  

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