Reviews

In this contemporary set production of one of Shakespeare’s late and most complex, layered and contradictory plays, Ralph Fiennes plays Antony as an already fading playboy.  The erstwhile war hero, in his mind responsible for young Caesar’s power, teeters on the brink of over the hill, trading on his past glories, drinks too much, getting a little porky, silver threads in beard and hair – and sexually obsessed with Sophie Okonedo’s quicksilver Cleopatra.  She is skittish, imperious, girlish, peremptory, sensual, cold, impulsive, calculating, uninhi

The actor’s dilemma is that there are always roles in which you will never be cast - you are the wrong gender, too old, too short, too blonde or just wrong. In this short and sweet production, which has already (deservedly) picked up a FringeWorld award, local performer Dixie Johnstone, and Melbourne’s Vincent Hooper, join forces to perform roles in which they would never be cast.

On a day when Adelaide broke its hottest temperature record, I serendipitously went to the opening night of Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers, presented by Starc Productions. The company philosophy embraces presenting plays where theatre design is secondary and the actor is central. This production captures and highlights both the skill of the actors and the magic of the text.

Steven Kreamer is an astonishing emerging talent as a musician, composer and performer who has also demonstrated his talents as an arranger and orchestrator. This show is a very personal account of his journey as a musician. The strength of this show is the numerous original compositions often written at important crossroads in his life. While the songs are predominantly reflecting on his experience of love and romance, they are often giving detailed accounts of episodes that have had some formative influence on his life and work.