Reviews

Like Me

Mongrel Mouth. Merchants House - 43-45 George St, The Rocks, Sydney. June 18 - July 11, 2015

Greeted by a red morph suited woman with newspaper for hair and balloons for breasts, the audience were coerced into a 166 year old house in The Rocks for a theatrical experience like no other. Described by multiple audience members as resembling ‘Teletubbies on ice,’ this sensory overload hits closer to home regarding society’s issues than initially expected. 

Little Diana and The Big Fuzz

By Bree Langridge. Directed by Darren Yap. Chapel off Chapel. 25th-27th June, 2015

Bree Langridge is the full package… great looks, fabulous voice, terrific dancer and oodles of charisma. Accompanied by one of the most kick-ass bands you can imagine, she holds us in thrall for 60 minutes in great cabaret inspired by the legendary Diana Ross and the music of Motown. Langridge has a vocal range many would kill for.

Pancake Opus 100

Written & performed by Sandra Fiona Long, dramaturgy Suzanne Ingleton. La Mama, Carlton (VIC). 25 June to 5 July 2015.

Sandra Fiona Long comes down the La Mama stairs and stands half turned away in the corner.  She’s tentative, scared and almost apologetic.  An authoritarian voice comes from the PA system, ordering Ms Long to display a list of various emotions, ending with Love.  The audience will love Love, says the voice.  Ms Long has a comic stab at it – the exaggerated effort plain to see – but of course ‘emotions’ disconnected from any context, situation, action or person are meaningless, so how can she possibly convey them? 

Dining (Uns)-table

By Cloé Fournier.
 PACT Centre for Emerging Artists, Erskineville. Produced by Travis De Vries. June 24 – 27, 2015

Well, look who's coming to dinner? It could well be you. This was an interesting and affecting piece of performance art which defied categorisation; incorporating audience-participation, multi-media, improvisation, absurdism, dance-movement and mime, which all combined into one great big, surreal euphemism.

2015 Griffin Award for New Australian Playwriting

SBW Stables Theatre. June 24, 2015

“Alive and living in this time and place."

A quote from the Griffin Awards winning play, Turquoise Blue by Stephen Carleton

2015 marks the eighteenth year that Griffin Theatre and Copyright Agency Limited have awarded $10,000 to a new Australian writer for their work. This is still a prestigious award. 

The Barber of Seville

By Rossini. Melbourne Opera. The Athenaeum Theatre Melbourne, 25 & 27 June & 3 July, 2015, and Monash University’s Alexander Theatre, July 10.

Melbourne Opera’s oft-revived production of ‘ The Barber of Seville’ retains a rather enviable freshness and vitality, in no small part due to the direction of Hugh Halliday, that all too rare director who can never bore an audience.  By leaving the piece squarely ‘in period’ and essentially following the instructions left by composer Rossini, librettist Sterbini and playwright Beaumarchais, the audience was kept laughing from curtain-up to the final scene.  Halliday’s first brilliant touch is to leave the curtain down for the overture.

In Search of Owen Roe

Written & performed by Vanessa O’Neil, dramaturgy & direction Glynis Angell. La Mama, Carlton (VIC), 24 June to 5 July 2015

Vanessa O’Neil’s search for Owen Roe takes her all the way back to ‘Red’ Owen Roe, a firebrand freedom fighter against Cromwell’s campaign to subdue Ireland in the 17th century.  It’s a search that became, by her own admission, obsessive, and she dramatises that in the opening sequence of this one-woman show: poring over photocopies of documents and newspaper clippings and maps in the middle of sleepless nights.  She’s aided too by a map of Ireland on one wall and her family tree on the opposite wall – although the family

10CS

Metanoia. Mechanic’s Institute, 270 Sydney Road, Brunswick. June 17 – 27, 2015

Metanoia’s 10CSoffers a self directed, almost arbitrary, visit to ten sites exploring the Ten Commandments.   In all, it’s a very personal journey predicated on one’s personal attitudes, understandings and inclinations towards a variety of religions. 

This challenging unconventional work is compiled in a variety of mediums.  There are 10 delineated sites with various installations; most are peopled and a couple of these purely electronic, a number subdued and a couple loud to the point of being brash.   

Turandot

By Giacomo Puccini. Libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni after the play by Carlo Gozzi. Opera Australia. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House. June 24 - August 28, 2015.

Can sublime music and a visually stunning production make up for a creaky story and wooden acting? That is the question posed by the return of the Graeme Murphy directed and choreographed production of Turandot.

It first graced the stage of the Sydney Opera House way back in August 1990, but there was no sign of any rust.  

Mutts

By Johnny Grim. Directed by Tony Moore. Holden Street Theatres, Hindmarsh (SA). June 24-July 4, 2015

A play sure to delight animal lovers, but imbued with enough perceptive wit to engage a more general audience, Mutts tells the story of nine poor, unfortunate dogs who have wound up thrown in the pound. In order to stave off the boredom of their incarceration, and keep their minds from dwelling on the bleak fate that awaits should no one come to claim them, this motley assortment of canines engage in spirited arguments about the facts of life and share stories of their past.

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