Reviews

Hotel Sorrento

By Hannie Rayson. HIT Productions. Directed by Denny Lawrence. The Q, Queanbeyan. 18–21 July 2018, and touring.

Three reuniting sisters focus involuntarily upon their joint history, examining their lives’ integrity and struggling with their difficult past and present choices and with what each is to the others.  By this means, Hotel Sorrento uses the sisters’ particular circumstances and characters to shed light on the Australian psyche as its playwright saw it at the time of writing.

 

Aida

Music by Giuseppe Verdi. Libretto by Antio Ghislanzoni. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House. Opera Australia. July 18 - August 31, 2018

Opera Australia blasted into the digital age with a new production that amplified the spectacle of ancient Egypt through the use of giant LED panels, which moved and spun around the stage, creating a giddy spectacle. It depicted a smorgasbord of moving images, ranging from an ominous giant panther, to a rider on a horse back charging through a desert and an extraordinary golden snake, which wrapped its slithering leather around the entire backdrop of the stage.

The Mikado

By Gilbert and Sullivan. GSOV. Director: Andrew McGrail. Musical Director: Timothy John Wilson. Darebin Arts and Entertainment Centre. July 19 – 22, 2018

I have often seen Andrew McGrail perform for GSOV, but this is the first time I’ve seen him direct and I was impressed. It’s difficult to find something new to add to this old warhorse, but Andrew certainly did that.

It opened with a prologue taken from the film “Topsy Turvy”, detailing the events that led up to the creation of The Mikado. Sullivan, naturally, was played by the MD, Timothy John Wilson, who then took his place in the pit. It was interesting, but I’m not sure it added that much.

Avenue Q

Music & Lyrics: Robert Lopez & Jeff Marx. Book: Jeff Whitty. Hobart Repertory Theatre. Director: Darren Sangwell. Musical Director Aaron Powell. Playhouse Theatre Hobart 14 – 28 July 2018

Even if you know what to expect of Avenue Q – a puppet show musical for grownups – (sometimes referred to as the adult version of Sesame Street) – it’s still a surprise to see the very conspicuous handlers, and hear the ribald jokes and saucy themes. It only took a few beats to get the idea that this was a show packed with characters, the puppeteers as important as their felt and fur charges.

The Unexpected Guest

By Agatha Christie, Directed by Sharon White, New Farm Nash Theatre Brisbane. July 13 to August 4, 2018

Unlike the murder – mystery novels, which are part of our folklore, and for which Agatha Christie is famous, The Unexpected Guest was written as a play and was first performed in 1958. Although not as well known as her play The Mousetrap, it still offers an intriguing plot that keeps the audience absorbed to the end. It starts on a foggy night when Michael Starkwebber enters the home of the Warwicks through a window in the study. He finds the dead body Richard Warwick and Richard’s wife holding a gun that supposedly killed him.

You Got Older

By Clare Barron. Mad March Hare Theatre Company and KXT bAKEHOUSE Theatre Company. Directed by Claudia Barrie. The Kings Cross Theatre, Kings Cross Hotel. 13 July – 4 August 2018

For the most satisfying evening in ages you have to climb the (many) stairs in the Kings Cross Theatre and then clamber over the setting on the traverse stage to take your (uncomfortable) seat for You Got Older by Clare Barron, first staged off-off-Broadway in 2014, Australian premiered in 2016 by Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre in Melbourne. It’s an absolute cracker, a must for every mountaineering theatregoer.

The Antipodes

By Annie Baker. Red Stitch, East St Kilda, VIC. 10 July – 12 August 2018.

Annie Baker’s The Antipodes is set in a television ‘writers’ room’.  Having spent a great deal of time in ‘writers’ rooms’ in my career, I wondered how Ms Baker would depict such a thing.  It wasn’t going to be how, say, David Mamet would depict it.  It turns out that her ‘writers’ room’ bears only tenuous resemblance to any real writers’ room in which I have worked – or indeed to any I’ve heard or read about. 

Macbeth

By William Shakespeare. National Theatre Live. Nova Cinema & participating venues. 21 July – 1 August 2018

Director Rufus Norris sets his Macbeth in a dystopian world, in the chaos, barbarity and destruction of the aftermath of a civil war. 

Good Muslim Boy

By Osamah Sami. Adaptation: Osamah Sami & Janice Muller. Queensland Theatre & Malthouse Theatre. Director: Janice Muller. Cremorne Theatre, QPAC. 12 July – 4 August 2018

A portion of Osamah Sami’s 2015 memoir Good Muslim Boy has previously been adapted into the successful movie Ali’s Wedding; now this play adaptation takes another part of the book, perhaps the most moving sequence of events in it, the sudden death of his cleric father while on a pilgrimage to Iran and his efforts to bring the body back to Australia against insurmountable obstacles.

Madame Butterfly

Opera Australia onTour. Director: John Bell. Conductor: Warwick Stengärds. Drum Theatre, Dandenong, July 13 & 14, 2018, then touring until September 18.

There was much to like in this touring production of Madame Butterfly, though it didn’t always hit the mark. The simple set, with sliding walls, worked well and looked appropriately second-hand in the second act. The small orchestra generally did well, though the strings were sloppy.

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