Reviews

The Testament Of Mary

By Colm Toibin. Director Anne-Louise Sarks. Lighting and Co-Set Design Paul Jackson. Composition and Sound Design Steve Toulmin. Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse Theatre. 3-26 November, 2017

The Testament Of Mary is a cheerless, emotionally demanding monologue centred on the world’s most iconic woman, Mary the mother of Jesus Christ. Mary has always been a loaded figure, contrived to propagate The Church’s impossible model of The Ideal Woman. Here Coln Toibin reimages Mary, brilliantly rendered by Pamela Rabe, throwing all prior assumptions under the proverbial bus.

 

The Wizard of Oz

Music: Harold Arlen. Lyrics: E.Y. Harburg. Additional Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber. Additional Lyrics: Tim Rice. Adaptation: Andrew Lloyd Webber & Jeremy Sams. John Frost, Suzanne Jones Production in association with The Production Company. Director: Jeremy Sams. Choreographer: Arlene Philips. Musical Supervisor: Guy Simpson. Lyric Theatre, QPAC. Opening Night: 9 Nov 2017.

If you love The Wizard of Oz movie then you’re going to love this stage adaptation, which is quite the best I’ve ever seen. Heavy on special effects, awash with colour, it’s a vividly spectacular version of L. Frank Baum’s beloved novel. Book adaptors Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jeremy Sams have gone back to basics, pulled the screenplay apart, and plugged the holes to make the story work as a stage musical. And Lloyd Webber, working with Tim Rice for the first time since Evita, has written some effective new songs to fill those gaps.

Guys and Dolls

Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser. Book by Jo Swerling & Abe Burrows. Queanbeyan Players Inc. Director: Jude Colquhoun. Musical Director: Jenna Hinton. Vocal Director: Emma White. The Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. Nov 3 – 12, 2017

This is a snappy, fun show with direction that has led to wholehearted participation from everyone involved. From the principal roles to each member of the chorus, each performer has their own part to act and sing and is dedicated to it.

The gamblers start the show with Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Ben Wilson), Benny Southwest (Tristan Foon) and Rusty Charlie (Joe Moores) setting the scene on Broadway with fine harmonies and good characterisation.

Alexithymia

By Tom Middleditch. Citizen theatre &A_tistic, Poppy Seed Festival. Meat Market, Stables, North Melbourne. 8 – 19 November, 2017.

The opening of the third Poppy Seed Festival was dynamic and exhilarating.

This year the first production is Alexithymia. This is a beautifully polished piece of Theatre that is presented in the round in the neat small Theatre/multi purpose space The Stables at the far west end of the Meat Market in North Melbourne.

The Naked Truth

By Dave Simpson. Tugun Theatre Co. Gold Coast. Director: Nathan Schulz. November 9th to 25th, 2017

Tugun Theatre Company is a small but adventurous group on the southern end of the Gold Coast and their latest offering is something quite confronting.

The Naked Truth explores the trials and tribulations in the lives of five prospective pole dancers. The girls: Rebecca Kenny-Sumiga, Samantha McClurg, Rianna Hartley-Smith, Cecile Campbell and Kate Armon are very raw recruits but under the tutelage of Peta Simeon they blossom into quite an entertaining ensemble.

Along the way we are privy to the pressures of their lives away from the poles.

The Father

By Florian Zeller, translated by Christopher Hampton. Melbourne Theatre Company (co-production with STC). Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio. Nov 2 – Dec 16, 2017

The great risk French playwright Florian Zeller takes with The Father is to tell its story from inside the mind of an elderly man who is losing his mind.  ‘Dementia’ or ‘Alzheimer’s’ are not mentioned, but we nowadays, we know all too well.

In-Laws, Outlaws & Other People (That Should Be Shot).

Written by Steve Franco. Directed by Erik Strauts. Blackwood Players Inc. Blackwood Memorial Hall. 3-18 November, 2017.

When the pair of performers to open a show (the consistently excellent Jarrod Chave and Annie Gladdis) have timing, energy, chemistry – plus impressive enunciation – it’s a good sign you’re in for a winner. As more and more of this large cast file in and fill the stage, the fun increases, and the experience evolves into a warm, gentle, amusing look at the way that families – American or otherwise - often behave at Christmas time.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Text by Charlotte Gilman Perkins. Adapted & devised by Laurence Strangio with Annie Thorold. Directed by Laurence Strangio. La Mama Explorations. La Mama Courthouse, Carlton VIC. 6-8 November 2017

A married woman, post partum, is confined to an upstairs room with yellow wallpaper.  Oh, she’s permitted to take brief strolls for some fresh air; it is her psychic being, her thoughts and feelings that are locked in.  She is ‘depressed’ (today we might call her condition ‘post-natal depression’), but her emotions are belittled, condescended to, and presented back to her transformed into ‘comforting’ and benign clichés.  She is delicate, she must take care, she must refrain from too much thinking, she must be separate

Aladdin: A Pantomime

Written by Ben Crocker. Directed by Sue Cherry. Noarlunga Theatre Company Inc. The Arts Centre, Port Noarlunga. 3-11 November, 2017.

If it’s good-hearted, high-spirited fun that you seek, the team at Noarlunga have got you covered with a charming panto that may be short on polish but is long on likeability. With a colourful range of characters out to either help or hinder the young hero Aladdin in his adventures, and a number of low-key-but-mostly-charming songs-and-dances along the way, there should be something to please all ages here.

Time Stands Still

By Donald Margulies. ECLIPSE Productions. TAP Gallery, Surry Hills. November 1 – 25.

Donald Margulies writes for “moral-thinking people”. When asked about Time Stands Still, he said it was “a way to write about what is going on in the world … what people are talking about.” He does so, according to director Claudia Barrie without offering any real answers to the questions he raises. Rather, “the bigger morality issues are left hanging in the air for us to … discuss long after the performance.”

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