Reviews

27 Club

Adelaide Fringe Festival 2021. Gluttony. February 19-28, 2021

Most of us are familiar with the 27 Club, a prestigious but tragic group of musicians and artists who lost their lives at the tender age of 27.

A cross-section of Australian talent graced the stage at ‘Moa’, the newest venue in Gluttony, to pay tribute and 'breathe new life' into some well-known artists. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, and blues legend Robert Johnson were channeled into an hour of high-voltage entertainment.

Michael Griffiths: Greatest Hits

Adelaide Fringe Festival 2021. The Chamber at THE QUEENS, Adelaide. Feb 19 – 21, 2021

Even the sauna-like atmosphere of The Chamber at The Queen’s Theatre did not deter the opening night audience for Michael Griffiths: Greatest Hits.

Lost Lives

By Spencer Scholz. Adelaide Fringe 2021. Safari Street Creative. Holden Street Theatres. Feb 19 – 27, 2021

Lost Lives is a new 70 minute play, written by Adelaide author Spencer Scholz. It has the germ of a very clever episode of Silent Witness, and I half hoped that my favourite characters would pop up and take advantage of a fabulous, enlightening forensic opportunity that the murder of lovely Jane Kelly presented.

The Bull, The Moon & the Coronet of Stars

By Van Badham. Presented by The Hive Collective and Metro Arts, Brisbane. Feb 17 to 27.

What happens when a woman unleashes her unbridled sexuality on a seemingly sympatico target – who turns out to be a dud choice? Wrong-footed romance leaves you feeling like Ariadne of Greek myth fame, abandoned on the beach at Naxos by Theseus – but with a glimmer of hope that Dionysus – the Greek God of wine and ecstasy –  will come along for a final rescue. In The Bull, the Moon & the Coronet of Stars, Van Badham takes this myth and weaves a magical, mystical tale of lust, love and destiny.

Summer Shorts

By Shirley Toohey, Yvette Wall and Bob Charteris. Directed by Michelle Sharp, Siobhán O’Gara and Bob Charteris. Melville Theatre, Stock Rd, Palmyra, WA. Feb 18-20, 2021

Melville Theatre's Summer Shorts opened to a shortened season, after being delayed Perth’s Covid shutdown. With reduced audience numbers, this sold out before it opened, but this show could easily have earned its capacity houses - a varied and entertaining night out. All three shows are by Western Australian authors.

Beautiful Thing

By Jonathan Hardy. New Theatre. Director: Mark G Nagle. Feb 2 – Mar 6, 2021

Beautiful Thing was a West End hit for playwright Jonathan Hardy in 1993. It is a gentle play about emerging gay love. Though set in the UK, its characters and their relationships are poignantly universal. Hardy injects their story with hope and humour that director Mark G Nagle describes as “touching and funny”.

Wolf Lullaby

By Hillary Bell. ECHO Theatre. Directed by Jordan Best. The Q – Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. 18 – 27 February, 2021

There’s something unthinkable about the idea of a child who kills. Childhood innocence is so incongruent with the concept of a murderer that we immediately reach for explanations involving intrinsic evil, parental blame or gross abuse.

Impermanence

Sydney Dance Company. Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay, February 16 - 27. Adelaide Festival, March 10-11, followed by a national tour.

Rafael Bonachela’s new work was cancelled a year ago when COVID closed our theatres just days before its opening.  No wonder it’s called Impermanence.

Bonachela then reforged it into a full one-hour work, with his frequent musical collaborator, Bryce Dessner, the American founder of the rock band The National, now Paris-based.  Impermanence was of course enveloping us all, our climate, the Australian bushfires, the incineration of the ancient Notre Dame and Trump’s America. 

Sea Wall

By Simon Stephens. Flying Penguin Productions. Adelaide Fringe. Space Theatre. February 16 – 21, 2021

It is interesting that one of my first thoughts on leaving this performance of Seawall, was a line from Hamilton – he is going through the unimaginable….

A play, crossing paths with a musical - so different, but inexorably linked through trauma.

House

By Dan Giovannoni. Barking Gecko. Directed by Luke Kerridge. Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of WA, Perth, WA. Feb 14-20, 2021

The World Premiere of Barking Gecko’s House was delayed slightly by Covid, but was well worth waiting for. This warm hug of a family show is from the same writer / director team who created the brilliant Bambert’s Book of Lost Stories, and has a similar combination of wonder, charm and surprise.

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