Reviews

Peacemongers

Writer and Co-creator: Morgan Rose. Director and Co-creator: Katrina Cornwell. The People. Musical Director: Zachary Pidd. Sound and AV Design: Justin Gardam. Lighting Design: Rachel Lee. Set and Costume Design: Nathan Burmeister. Darebin Arts Speakeasy. Apr 24 – May 5, 2024

Experimental musical dinner theatre isn’t common, and theatre exploring the dark underbelly of bigotry and polarisation which expressly wants the audience to feel warmly safe is even less so. The People, which is a loose group of people centred around Morgan Rose and Katrina Cornwell have managed to bring a piece to life which does just that.

The 13th Month

By Cassandra-Ellis Yiannacou. Peg on a Line and Wildefang Productions. Flight Path Theatre, Marrickville, NSW. 1 – 4 May, 2024

The “13th month” in the title of this play refers to attempts to change the 12-month calendar to a 364 day year divided into 13 months of 28 days. It was first suggested in 1849 and the idea was revived early in the 20th century. Despite the support of some businessmen, statisticians and accountants, the idea was officially jettisoned in 1937.

Working Class Clown

By Tommy Misa. House Stage, White Bay Power Station presented by The Biennale of Sydney and Performance Space. Directed by Tommy Misa. 1st – 3rd May, 2024

The performance space for the Biennale of Sydney at the White Bay Power Station is ‘out the back’. Which is not to say that it’s small. Open plan, the audience faces 40 steps to a first floor platform (with occasional strolling viewers), only a third of the way to a huge cathedral-style roof, hung with draperies and flags too distant to discern. It’s hardly the venue for an intimate one-person show.

Yet it’s here that Samoan/Australian actor Tommy Misa has to tell his tender, troubled story of life in Canberra as a gay boy and youth. 

Tina – The Tina Turner Musical

Book by Katori Hall with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins. Paul Dainty – TEG Dainty presents the Stage Entertainment production. Adelaide Festival Theatre. April 24th – May 31st, 2024

Anna Mae Bullock was born in Nutbush, Tennessee in 1939. She would rise to the peak of her chosen field many years later as superstar Tina Turner. Turner - along with authors Katori Hall, Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins - would start workshopping Tina the musical in 2016. In April 2018 Turner’s life story adapted as a musical would hit the Aldwych Theatre in the West End. Every year after, another overseas destination was added to the touring schedule.

The Magic Kazoo

By Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Penny Shaw. Freeze Frame Opera. Directed by Penny Shaw Dalkeith Road School of Music, Nedlands WA. Apr 27, 2024

The Magic Kazoo is the latest in a series of operas adapted and produced by Freeze Frame Opera for Primary School students. Whereas previous shows have adapted familiar stories or used opera music to shape known stories, The Magic Kazoo aims to capture the elements that make The Magic Flute enchanting, while creating a short opera story that appeals to young audiences.

Macbeth

By William Shakespeare. Filmed live at Doc X, in London. Sharmill Films. CinemaCloudWorks. In selected Australian cinemas from May 3, 2024.

To the average cinemagoer Ralph Fiennes will forever be Voldemort from the Harry Potter series, but he is so much more!

It was Ralph Fiennes’s mother who introduced him to his acting career. He was 8 or 9, lying atop the bunk bed he shared with his younger brother Magnus, when he asked her to tell him a story. The tale she chose was Hamlet.

The Almighty Sometimes

By Kendall Feaver. Cairns Little Theatre. Directed by Matt O’Connor. April 19-May 4, 2024

This is a timely new Australian play centred on mental health.

The central character is Anna, an eighteen year-old who has been on medication since as long as she can remember. The play opens with Anna, appearing quite normal, establishing a relationship with Oliver, a male friend. In the background is Anna’s protective mother Renee who encourages the relationship. However, Anna decides not to take her medication anymore and discovers that as a child she had a promising writing talent, a talent that seems to have been suffocated by medication.

You’re Being Dramatic

Written & directed by Zadie Kennedy McCracken. Theatre Works Explosives Factory. 24 April – 4 May 2024

The title, You’re Being Dramatic, sounds like a put-down, as in ‘now you’re being dramatic…’  As in, ‘Now you’re getting emotional, calm down, don’t make a scene.’  That inhibition, that fear of conflict, is the crux of Zadie Kennedy McCracken’s play.  Sometimes it might be best to be ‘dramatic’ - or not and live to regret it.

Evil Dead the Musical

By George Reinblatt, Christopher Bond, Frank Cipolla, Melissa Morris, and Rob Daleman. Wanneroo Repertory. Directed by Kieran Ridgway. Limelight Theatre, Wanneroo, WA. April 26-May 11, 2024

The Australian Premiere of Evil Dead the Musical is a schlocky, blood-filled parody of the Evil Dead series and horror movies in general. Self-aware, and not taking itself very seriously, it is well-directed with high production values and a talented cast and crew.

Straight White Male

Norm & Ahmed by Alex Buzo, followed by Radha & Ryan by Nick Parsons. Directed by Nick Parsons. La Mama HQ, Carlton. 23 April – 5 May 2024

Alex Buzo’s very controversial – and prosecuted for ‘obscenity’ – two-hander Norm & Ahmed dates back to 1968.  Writer and director Nick Parsons thought to revive it and play it alongside a long-considered piece of his own: Radha & Ryan.  The aim being to compare and contrast two eras and the sorts of Australian prejudice and attendant violence – then and now.  Both plays are set at bus shelters, late at night and both involve chance encounters.

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