Reviews

In a Deep Dark Forest

By Roslyn Oades and Collaborators. The Inhabitors. Arts Centre Melbourne. 11 – 15 January 2017

Arrive at the Arts Centre just before 10 AM over the next couple of weeks and you will find the place to be a hive of activity swarming with children.  Hopefully these youngsters will compromise some of the audiences of tomorrow.  And if most of the works on offer are of the caliber of In a Deep Dark Forest I am sure this will be the case.

The Season

By Nathan Maynard. Sydney Festival/Tasmania Performs. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. January 10 – 15, 2017

Nathan Maynard has written a love letter to his community, which harvests mutton birds on a small island in Bass Strait, and the frequent gales of laughter from the opening night audience let it be known that the affection is contagious.

Nosferatutu … or Bleeding at the Ballet

By Tommy Bradson. Virginia Hyam Productions and Griffin Independent. SBW Stables Theatre. January 7 – 21, 2017

Griffin’s first independent show for the year opens with blood on the floor. 

Vampire Nosferatutu is driven by an urge centuries-old to dance ballet and just can’t resist chewing into dancer Brandyn Kaczmarczyk when he steps out to do a solo Swan Lake.  

Backed by Steven Kreamer’s agile three handed orchestra, the rest of this mad cabaret is Nosferatutu struggling alone to dance the classic, and share his ample collapse of self-worth.

Burn The Floor

Directed by Peta Roby. Choreographed by Jason Gilkison and Peta Roby. State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne. January 6 to 15, 2017

It’s nearly 30 years since we watched Australia’s own ballroom dancing champions on the telly as they conquered the world. Thousands of Aussie girls (my own two included) were inspired to take up ballroom dancing as a result. There never has, and probably never will be, a dance couple quite so skilled, original and innovative as Jason and Peta. Like Torvill and Dean in ice dance, they epitomise excellence.

Prize Fighter

By Future D Fidel. La Boite Theatre Company and Brisbane Festival production in association with Sydney Festival. Belvoir Upstairs Theatre. January 6 – 22, 2017.

This is a deeply moving first play from Congolese-Australian writer Future D Fidel, obviously finely polished in workshops by director Todd MacDonald and his La Boite Theatre in Brisbane.

The power is in Fidel’s near autobiographical story about a childhood dragged through the horrors of racial genocide in the Congo, refugee camps and a new world in Brisbane. 

Measure for Measure

By William Shakespeare. Cheek by Jowl / Pushkin Theatre (Russia). Sydney Festival. January 7 – 11, 2017

“It was good but I don’t know what it was about,” concluded the theatre enthusiast beside me. He’d never seen Measure for Measure, let alone in Russian.

It’s a rigorous, bracing production from Moscow’s Pushkin Theatre, with director Declan Donnellan and designer Nick Ormerod from Britain’s famed Cheek by Jowl – a star offering of the Sydney Festival.  But, yes, you need to know the play.

Swing On This

With Michael Falzon, Ben Mingay, Luke Kennedy, Rob Mills. Direction & Choreography: Chris Horsey. Music Direction: Craig Schnieder. QPAC, Good Egg Creative & Asia Theatricals. Concert Hall, QPAC, Brisbane. 7 January 2017

What a great start to 2017 this show was – a quartet of Australia’s leading-men, an 18-piece big band, and songs that mined the Sinatra/Buble songbook – it was a perfect mix. The four guys, Ben Mingay (Wonderland/House of Bond), Luke Kennedy (The Voice/The Ten Tenors), Michael Falzon (We Will Rock You/Rock of Ages), and Rob Mills (Wicked/Grease), were sensational, delivering one of the most polished vocals acts we’ve seen in recent times.

Biographica

Composed by Mary Finsterer, with a libretto by Tom Wright. Sydney Festival. Sydney Chamber Opera in association with Ensemble Offspring. Carriageworks. Jan 7 – 13, 2017.

The Sydney Festival kicks off premiering this rousing local chamber opera from composer Mary Finsterer and librettist Tom Wright.  Through a dozen episodic scenes, we glimpse key moments in the life and genius of the Italian astronomer, mathematician, doctor and general Renaissance polymath, Gerolamo Cardano.  

In a speaking role, Mitchell Butel captures his abrasive capacity to speak on all matters – and the  interconnectedness of all systems – but Cardano has less luck connecting with his own domestic life.  

The Wind In The Willows

Adapted by Glen Elston from the novel by Kenneth Grahame. Directed by Otis Elston, Musical Director Robert Jackson. The Australian Shakespeare Company. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne (Gate F off Birdwood Avenue). 6 – 28 January 2017.

A sell-out crowd of parents and small children wait in the twilight on a lawn sloping down to a small lake in Melbourne’s beautiful Botanic Gardens.  We’re waiting for what has become – after 30 years – practically Melbourne’s Christmas panto: The Wind In The Willows – performed by very hard-working and, as they let us know, underpaid actors.  The first is Head Chief Rabbit (Chris Southall) in white tails and floppy ears.  Right off the bat, he sings and enlists the audience to be rabbits (‘wiggle your ears, twitch your nose,

Ladies in Black

Book by Carolyn Burns. Music and Lyrics by Tim Finn. Queensland Theatre / Sydney Theatre. Directed by Simon Phillips. Sydney Lyric Theatre, Jan 3 – 22, 2017; Playhouse – QPAC, Brisbane, Jan 28 – Feb 19; Regent Theatre, Melbourne, Feb 25 – Mar 18; Canberra Theatre Centre, Mar 27 – Apr 2.

This quintessential Sydney story – adapted entirely by New Zealand born creatives – wrapped the audience in a familiar and cosy blanket of recognition. The production has been previously staged in Brisbane and Melbourne where references to Sydney suburbs did not elicit the giggles of recognition achieved in their hometown.

At the heart of the story is a young girl, aged 17 who wants, not to find the man of her dreams, but advance her education. In the 1950’s completing the Leaving Certificate (HSC) was the exception rather than the rule.

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