Reviews

Mark Colvin’s Kidney

By Tommy Murphy. The Drill Hall Theatre Company, Mullumbimby, Northern N.S.W. Director: John Rado. 28th September – 14th October, 2018

This play is the dramatisation of the story of the late ABC PM Radio Host, Mark Colvin and the selfless donation of a replacement kidney by a British woman who only knew him via the airwaves and social media. 

Spanning many years, the story starts in London during the last decade, at the height of the phone-tapping scandal that rocked the print media world and Rupert Murdoch’s News Of The World.

The Phantom of the Opera

By Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe. The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of SA Inc. The Arts Theatre. 27 September – 6 October 2018

The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber (Music/Book), Charles Hart (Lyrics) and Richard Stilgoe (Lyrics/Book) was the most successful piece of entertainment in the twentieth century. It was first performed in London in 1986 and subsequently throughout the world, winning numerous awards and earning more than any game, film, theatre, concert, or any other form of public entertainment. It has delighted and charmed millions of people and is still being performed in London and New York and other places.

Faith Healer

By Brian Friel. A Belvoir production presented by State Theatre Company South Australia. Space Theatre. September 26th - October 13th, 2018

Before last night, if you had asked me if I would enjoy a night out listening to four monologues, I may well have yawned and politely declined. State Theatre Company South Australia’s Belvoir production of Faith Healer, with its powerful, seemingly simple and beautifully staged storytelling has changed all that.

The Marvellous Wonderettes

Creators: Roger Bean and Brian William Baker. Basement Theatre, Spotlight Benowa, Gold Coast. Director: Katie Steuart-Robins. Sept 21st – Oct 7th, 2018

One could be forgiven for thinking that when a Musical has a cast of 4, no set, just a static backdrop, props that include 4 free standing microphones and a cootie catcher – that it may be that you're in for a long night.  Oh - and a piece of chewing gum!

Pilepileta

By Sheree Stewart. Melbourne Fringe Festival. Theatre Works. Sep 25 – 30, 2918

The definition of Pilepileta in Wemba Wemba language is to shine and glitter.

As an indigenous and queer artist, Sheree Stewart does just that in her new debut solo show Pilepileta. It is a heart wrenching and an imaginative spoken word performance. 

Stewart is unabashedly raw, upfront and honest! Brought up in a small town in the Mallee region of Victoria in the early nineties, where life for the locals was hard and work was scarce with industries drying up, along with the remoteness factor that continued to cripple the community.

Julie

By Polly Stenham after August Strindberg’s Miss Julie. National Theatre Live. Cinema Nova & other participating venues. In cinemas 29 September – 10 October 2018.

Polly Stenham drops the ‘Miss’ from the title of Strindberg’s 1888 original in her rewrite/update.  That change is central and crucial to her 2018 take on this classic.  On its production in London, most critics/reviewers judged that Ms Stenham had ‘lowered the stakes’.  I’d say that she changed the stakes, by blurring the rigid class boundaries of the original, making the characters her own, and using Strindberg’s triangular situation to grind her own axe.  In other words, this is an even more wholesale takeover than say, Simon

Freefall

Melbourne Fringe Festival. The Burrow - Brunswick St, Fitzroy. September 21 – 30, 2018

FreeFall was an experience that I never realised I wanted to experience again... Until tonight! Theatre makers Kitan Petkovski of Bullet Heart Club and Milly Copper from Wielding Theatre have combined forces and created a performance reeking with blurred moments and dreamscapes from the drunken night out that haunts your clubbing days of time gone by (well, for me anyway)!

A brilliantly cast ensemble of performers, who are also credited as writers, work symbiotically on the small stage, faced head on by a row of seats either side of the performance space.

Uprising

By Patricia Cornelius and Melissa Reeves. Tasmanian Theatre Company and Upstart Theatre in association with Hobart Youth Arc. Moonah Arts Centre. Christine Best (Director). Angela Barnard (Choreographer). Sept 19-29 2018

Uprising is a double bill comprising Got to start somewhere by Patricia Cornelius and This age wanted heroes by Melissa Reeves. The two plays are linked by the concept of “protest”.

Offenbach Retold Triptych

By Jacques Offenbach. BK Opera (Vic). Director: Henry Shaw. MC Showroom, September 25 – 29, 2018

BK Opera continues to push the boundaries when it comes to opera. This production featured a new director, with Henry Shaw taking the reins, but the innovation was still there.

Offenbach wrote many operettas, and the director has taken three, utilising the music, but replacing the original story line with his own with English dialogue. The music was sung in the original French with surtitles on a TV screen, which was part of the set.

It was bedlam!

Kindly Leave The Stage

By John Chapman. Sunnybank Theatre Group, Sunnybank, Qld. Director: Chris Guyler. September 14 – 29, 2018.

Kindly Leave the Stage is new to me but with its set of stock characters I feel like I’ve seen it a hundred times. This English farce written by John Chapman, who has a heap of credits in the genre - Not Now, Darling, There Goes the Bride, and TV’s Are You Being Served - has devised a play-within-a-play piece about actors on a provincial tour who let their private lives surface in full-view of the audience. The fourth wall is not only broken but blitzed.

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