Reviews

Johan Inger’s startling ballet Carmen shifts our focus from the famed femme fatale to the defeated Don Jose who swoons over her.  Callum Linnane excels as the sexually uncertain prison guard – having to lock up Carmen – dancing tall and lyrical, then crumpled into angular gestures by his unrequited love.  

Linnane is beautifully expressive of Inger’s cocktail of classical and contemporary movement (and music) in this dark psychoanalytical interruption.

Popular across Asia – and MICF stalwart - comedian Kuah Jenhan finally got himself a ‘real job’.  At thirty-five.  In advertising.  For the same reasons anyone gets a real job.  His comedian mates accused him of selling out.  Kuah admits that’s true; he did sell out – for a regular wage, health care, paid holidays, superannuation…  For him, the lot of comedians who don’t sell out, who keep their integrity, is ‘crying in the streets’ – Kuah sees them as he rides past in his car.  Mean, huh?

Pop culture meets reality TV to retell the story of Joan of Arc and her cult of personality, with a contemporary lens, in a highly theatrical style. Curtin Theatre Arts and the Hayman Theatre Company present Joan Must Die - I Never Really Liked Her Anyway, in only its second ever production.

In their mission statement, Gympie based Perseverance Street Theatre Company state they want to create theatre with an “authentic connection to people and place”. Grit fulfils this mission statement. This theatre company has struck a rich seam of gold in a town that allegedly ran out years ago. This particular nugget of culture is like a rock in the river of time. It fixes both in time and place our hopes and dreams.