Reviews

What a splendid way to finish the G&S Fest. State Opera SA have done it again - The Sorcerer is a hit!

W S Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s third collaboration (if you count Thespis, rarely performed due to a large percentage of the work being lost), The Sorcerer had a small initial run of 175 performances and provided George Grossmith (the original G&S comedian) with a gift of a role, John Wellington Wells, the travelling sorcerer with a few tricks up his sleeve and one of the hardest patter songs in the repertoire.

It’s becoming a cliché to say “Spotlight has another triumph on its hands.” But clichés are only clichés because they happen so often. The standard at this Gold Coast community theatre could best be described as ‘excellence on a budget”. Their commitment to every production provides marvellous entertainment to the community at a fraction of the cost of any ticket to a mainstream show.

When it first appeared in 1958, Suddenly Last Summer, at 90 minutes, seemed so short that it had to be accompanied by another play by Tennessee Williams, Something Unspoken. Now, of course, it’s the perfect length, packed full of scandal and melodrama, including lobotomy, pederasty and cannibalism. It’s also ‘perhaps the most poetic play’ the great American playwright ever wrote, which for Williams is saying a lot.

There are goosebumps upon goosebumps and it isn’t the cold winter air. The chill in the air is a foreboding feel; shadows on a dimly lit stage; shadowy figures; haunting melodies. 

It is The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This is Darkened Disney. 

Expect the awful side of humanity: religious extremism, racism, sexual predators, brutal treatment of minorities to throw a few out. It isn’t a show to skip along to with an expectation of  butterflies and glitter cannons.