Reviews

Chopin’s Last Tour

Presented by Anvil Creek Theatre. Adelaide Fringe. The German Club, Adelaide. February 26 - March 5, 2016

Accomplished actor/pianist Phil Aughey delivers an impressive performance on two fronts with Chopin’s Last Tour – performing six of the great man’s most iconic compositions with impeccable precision, and in between, regaling the audience with impassioned dramatic monologues “in character” as Chopin himself.

All My Love

By Anne Brooksbank. Christine Harris and HIT Productions. Director: Denny Lawrence. The Q – Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. 24 – 27 February 2016 and touring

Henry Lawson and Mary Gilmore’s life-long love was an epic tragedy of desires thwarted by social expectation and circumstance. Writer Anne Brooksbank came across this beautiful story while researching Gilmore’s memoirs and has done a creditable job reproducing these characters on stage.

Go Down Moses

Written by Claudia Castellucci & Romeo Castelluci. Directed by Romeo Castellucci. Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide. February 25-28, 2016

The Adelaide Festival Centre’s website declares Italian writer/director Romeo Castellucci to be “unquestionably one of the most important figures in contemporary theatre” – to which I say, the emperor is wearing no clothes. Arguably the worst play written this century, Go Down Moses is an insufferably pretentious slog that amounts to long stretches of boredom, interrupted occasionally by moments of disgusting, utterly brainless sensationalism.

Teacup in a Storm

The Q. Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, Penrith. February 25 – 27, 2016

Verbatim theatre, by definition, is confronting and challenging for the audience, for the theatre maker … but especially for those who are prepared to share their personal stories and experiences. When those stories are told by the very many, varied – and mostly unsung – carers in our community, the challenges become greater. Why? Because often the experiences they share are tinged, unnecessarily, with guilt, self-reproach and regret, and therefore expose raw edges and fraying self esteem.

Romeo and Juliet

By William Shakespeare. Bell Shakespeare. The Playhouse, Sydney Opera House. February 24 to March 27, 2016

This Bell Shakespeare production returns to the sexy, sumptuous garb of Shakespeare’s High Renaissance but, inexplicably, is set in an old theatre cluttered with scaffolding.

While we admire Anna Cordingley’s costumes, the metaphor of her no-where, theatre set - despite its different levels being inventively employed - is never explained in this remote, uneven production directed by Peter Evans. 

Love, Loss & Lattes

By Missy. Adelaide Fringe. Tandanya Theatre. Feb 24th – 28th, 2016.

It is not very often we see someone’s love affair with coffee interpreted in such an imaginative way. Coffee has become the 21st century’s drug of choice with no defining demographic. Missy brings her diverse skills to the stage in her first solo show. Her ambition to perform by herself at the Adelaide Fringe is one she claims she can now cross off her bucket list.

ABBOTT The Musical

Adelaide Fringe. Tandanya, Grenfell Street. February 24-28, 2016 8pm and March 2-5, 9.30 pm.

The cast of ABBOTT The Musical is talented and the material is clearly spot-on, with the musical’s 2016 Adelaide Fringe production parodying events in Canberra up to the demise of Tony Abbott as Prime Minister.

The Light In The Piazza

Music & Lyrics by Adam Guettel. Book by Craig Lucas. Based upon the novella by Elizabeth Spencer. Directed by Hayley Horton. Adelaide Fringe / Davine Interventionz. The Star Theatre, Hilton (SA). February 24-March 5, 2016

For this year’s Adelaide Fringe Festival, Davine Interventionz Productions present a classy, yet accessible South Australian premiere of The Light In The Piazza – a musical that tells a disarmingly simple, intimate love story through a series of deeply layered, sometimes dazzlingly complex songs.

Little Shop of Horrors

Book and Lyrics by Howard Ashman. Music by Alan Menken. Luckiest Productions and Tinderbox Productions in association with Hayes Theatre Co. Hayes Theatre, February 18 – March 19, 2016, then touring.

Audience members were overheard describing the evening as  "magical" as they left the Hayes Theatre. The Sci-Fi musical, based on the 1960 cult film written by Charles B Griffith then developed into a musical by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, had just exploded onto the stage, with power house vocals boosted by surround sound.

Moonlight and Magnolias

By Ron Hutchinson. Directed by Bruce Akers. Heidelberg Theatre Company 36 Turnham Avenue, Rosanna. 19 February – 5 March, 2016.

David Zelznick (Tim Constantine) is the hyperactive visionary who created what is often considered the greatest film produced in Hollywood. Zelznick convinces scriptdoctor Ben Hecht (James Antonas) and director Victor Fleming (Jeremy Just) to work on a rewrite of the screenplay for five days, while cooped up in his office. They live off peanuts and bananas provided by the faithful assistant Miss Poppenghul (Pauline Constantine).

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