Reviews

Back to the fabulous Eternity Theatre in Darlinghurst, Sydney, comes this inventive production from 2019, with the little matter of a global pandemic intervening since we saw it last. Now, as the mist clears, we can see clearly what Once has to offer: a touching love story, great songs, compelling characters and inventive stagecraft. I feel better already.

Whilst you could be forgiven for assuming that this is the name of a polite English comedy, it is, in fact, a 90 minute play that has at its heart, a real race held annually in the Australian country town of Robertson in New South Wales. Starting in 1913, the race was exclusively for men until the scandalous appearance, in 1988 (in our story), of cleverly disguised Alexander Strumpet who opened the floodgates to women.

There was a lot of love in the air last night in the Concert Hall: waves of love from the musicians, waves of love from the singer, and waves of love from the audience for the performance. Celebrating two centuries of liberation from the Ottoman Empire, the songs of four of Greece’s contemporary composer Gods - Vassilis Tsitsanis, Manos Hatzidakis, Stavros Xachakos and Mikis Theodorakis - have been responsible for founding the modern Rebetiko and Laiko genres of popular Greek music.

One of the enduring questions for those of us looking back through time at what happened during the Third Reich is, “How did ordinary citizens sit by and let it happen?” In A German Life - the true story of Brunhilde Pomsel (Robyn Nevin) - you may find some answers. The play is drawn from 235 pages of transcribed interviews with Ms Pomsel, who was disinterested in politics and claimed to be unaware of the atrocities being committed by the Nazis, even while working as a secretary for Goebbels himself!