Reviews

The Yellow Wallpaper

Text by Charlotte Gilman Perkins. Adapted & devised by Laurence Strangio with Annie Thorold. Directed by Laurence Strangio. La Mama Explorations. La Mama Courthouse, Carlton VIC. 6-8 November 2017

A married woman, post partum, is confined to an upstairs room with yellow wallpaper.  Oh, she’s permitted to take brief strolls for some fresh air; it is her psychic being, her thoughts and feelings that are locked in.  She is ‘depressed’ (today we might call her condition ‘post-natal depression’), but her emotions are belittled, condescended to, and presented back to her transformed into ‘comforting’ and benign clichés.  She is delicate, she must take care, she must refrain from too much thinking, she must be separate

Aladdin: A Pantomime

Written by Ben Crocker. Directed by Sue Cherry. Noarlunga Theatre Company Inc. The Arts Centre, Port Noarlunga. 3-11 November, 2017.

If it’s good-hearted, high-spirited fun that you seek, the team at Noarlunga have got you covered with a charming panto that may be short on polish but is long on likeability. With a colourful range of characters out to either help or hinder the young hero Aladdin in his adventures, and a number of low-key-but-mostly-charming songs-and-dances along the way, there should be something to please all ages here.

Time Stands Still

By Donald Margulies. ECLIPSE Productions. TAP Gallery, Surry Hills. November 1 – 25.

Donald Margulies writes for “moral-thinking people”. When asked about Time Stands Still, he said it was “a way to write about what is going on in the world … what people are talking about.” He does so, according to director Claudia Barrie without offering any real answers to the questions he raises. Rather, “the bigger morality issues are left hanging in the air for us to … discuss long after the performance.”

Birdcage Thursdays

By Sandra Fiona Long. Directed by Caitlin Dullard, fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne. 2 – 12 November 2017.

This play attempts to address a confronting social issue with freshness and humour. The concept is endearing with a very noble agenda. Helene (Genevieve Picot) is an elderly woman whose tendency for hoarding is placing her independent living at risk. Sophia Constantine plays both her pet cockatoo and her frustrated daughter, who is struggling to convince her mother that her hoarding is becoming unstainable. The author, Sandra Fiona Long, also acts as a playful narrator who highlights the often bizarre nature of the scenarios that are depicted.

There Goes the Bride

Play by Ray Cooney & John Chapman. Centenary Theatre. Director: Janine Francis. Chelmer Community Centre, Brisbane. November 4-25, 2017.

The premise of Ray Cooney and John Chapman’s farce There Goes the Bride is a switch on the time-travel aspect of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court coupled with Mary Chase’s hallucinatory Harvey, whereby an ad-executive gets a bonk on the head and wakes up with a 1920’s flapper by his side which only he can see.

The Conspirators

By Vaclav Hável. South Australian Premiere. Red Phoenix Theatre. Holden Street Theatres. 2-11 November, 2017.

Synonyms for conspirators include plotters, connivers, collaborators and accomplices, and all of these are true descriptions for the group who form the centre of The Conspirators, Red Phoenix Theatre’s current production.

Cinderella

Music: Richard Rodgers. Book & Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II. Queensland Musical Theatre. Director: Deian Ping. Musical Director: Gerry Crooks. Choreography: Julianne Burke. Schonell Theatre, St Lucia 1-5 Nov 2017

Whoever plays Cinderella needs to look and act like a princess and fortunately Queensland Musical Theatre have found the perfect girl for the role. Sarah Copley is princess material personified; singing in a mature soprano, looking magical in a white ball-gown, and tripping daintily up the steps of the palace, she is the best thing about this very old-fashioned production.

Merciless Gods

Short stories by Christos Tsiolkas, adapted to the stage by Dan Giovannoni. Little Ones Theatre / Griffin Independent. SBW Stables Theatre. November 1 – 25, 2017.

Melbourne queer company Little Ones Theatre reveals a dark underbelly of life and love in the intimate space of Sydney’s Griffin.  

This is an adaptation of eight stories from a collection by Christos Tsiolkas published in 2014, a highly visceral and wrenching voyage though prisons, deathbeds, saunas and alleyways to cheap rent boys, drugs and porn.

Writer Dan Giovannoni doesn’t always translate the exposition of literature into living theatrical experience but, even then, Tsiolkas’ original words still shock and grabs us by the throats.

Hotelling

A Bleached Arts Production. Peppers Soul, Surfers Paradise. 1st-5th November, 2017. 2 shows nightly

There is an active movement in South East Queensland to produce entertainment more up-market and away from the obvious. Bleached Arts successfully accomplished this with its first Bleach Festival early this year, and we see it in productions like Cockfight by The Farm, and the stunning Blanc de Blanc (reviewed last month).

Ruby Slipper Chronicles

Devised and performed by Aurelie Roque. Sideshow Project. The Basement. Arts Centre Gold Coast. 3rd and 4th November, 2017. Sideshow until 10th December.

Regional Arts Centres have to be innovative to stay alive, and the Gold Coast is no exception.

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