Reviews

The Wharf Revue: The Patriotic Rag

Written and created by Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe, and Phillip Scott. Sydney Theatre Company. Musical direction by Phillip Scott. The Playhouse, Canberra. 12–23 September 2017

Come rain or shine, in sickness and in health, from year to year The Wharf Revue only gets richer and funnier.  Its dedicated writers and staple cast, Biggins, Forsythe, and Scott, have spent some 18 years in bringing their craft to such a finely honed point that you can only marvel at the ingenuity that makes you laugh even at a joke by Donald J.

Glorious!

By Peter Quilter. Hit Productions. Director: Denny Lawrence. Gardens Theatre, Brisbane. 12-13 September 2017 and touring.

Meryl Streep is a hard act to follow but Diana McLean makes you forget her in an instant the moment she walks on stage in this touring production of Glorious!, Peter Quilter’s play about the legendary off-key singing soprano Florence Foster Jenkins. Bringing zeal, passion and considerable warmth to the character, she establishes instant rapport with the audience (as Foster Jenkins obviously did back in the forties) massacring some of the most difficult arias in the opera canon. Who knew McLean could sing and sing so well badly?

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

By William Shakespeare. TheatreiNQ. Directed by Terri Brabon. Queen’s Gardens, Townsville, Queensland. 12 to 24 September 2017

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is probably one of the most loved and most performed of all Shakespeare’s comedies and as a result receives many interpretations. But this is probably one of the freshest and funniest versions you will ever see.

Directed by Terri Brabon for her Townsville-based  ompany, TheatreiNQ, it is the annual Shakespeare Under the Stars presentation, and each successive year the productions seems eclipse its predecessors to such a point that it may be hard to pinpoint the pinnacle of success.

4.48 Psychosis

By Sarah Kane. Directed by Michele McNamara. Illumi-Nation Theatre. Gasworks Arts Park, Albert Park VIC. 12-16 September 2017

Director Michele McNamara’s intention for Sarah Kane’s 1999 play (first performed in 2000) is to depict ‘a world where we can see what we feel’.  In this, she largely succeeds.  It’s a play ‘about’ the experience of clinical depression and the aim, for this director, is to take us into the world of mental illness.

Enter the Vortex

The Dream Dance Co. Directed by Marko Panzic. The Playhouse, Canberra. 10 September 2017 and touring

Currently in just its third season, the Dream Dance Co. is the brainchild of Marko Panzic, who has choreographed for such spectacular shows as “So You Think You Can Dance”.  Panzic uses the company both to provide commercial dance with a profile and as a commercial outlet for the dancers’ talents.  In Enter the Vortex, the Dream Dance Co.

Exceptional Us

By Dale Schrifin and David Campton. Stirling Players Youth Theatre Group. Directed by Liz Pemberton and Andie Holborn. Stirling Theatre, Innaloo, WA. Sep 12-14, 2017

Exceptional Us is a compilation of two one act plays, presented by Stirling Players Youth Theatre Group. The 11 -15 year olds performed with great energy, enthusiasm and teamwork, to a very receptive audience.

The Exceptional Childcare Centre, by Dale Schrifin, tells of a young boy accepted into a highly competitive preschool. He is given a one day trial in order to secure his place, but things go rather awry.

Snap Season

By Liz Hobart. Life After Productions / Sydney Fringe. Direction - Jordan Shea. Dramaturgy/Sound Design - Alex Lee Rekers. Erskineville Town Hall. September 12 – 16, 2017

It’s a sweltering Aussie family Christmas Day, or so it seems, as two generations of women, mother and daughter, escape to the coolest room in the house, the bathroom. A third generation, the grandmother, though recently deceased, is omnipresent.

This short debut play by Liz Hobart lays bare the complex relationships between the three women.

The truthful dynamic between the mother, Fiona, and daughter, Imogen, played so affectingly by Anna Lee and Annie Stafford, is palpabe in this drama, heightened by being played out in real time in a single space.

The Club

By David Williamson. Heidelberg Theatre Company, Rosanna, VIC. 8-23 September 2017

David Williamson’s 1977 play is, by this, a bit of an old warhorse that is constantly revived.  And why not?  It’s funny and its subject is a sport – or what that sport means to the characters – that is an obsession for millions of Australians.  In Melbourne, the trams and trains on a Friday or Saturday night are packed with fans (‘supporters’) in their club regalia heading for the MCG or the Etiad Stadium.  ‘Who d’you follow?’ is a question to which you better have an answer.  The play is also prescient about th

Honour

By Joanna Murray-Smith. Villanova Players. Director: Cameron Gaffney. F.T. Barrell Auditorium, Yeronga, Qld. August 26 – September 10, 2017

Although it’s set in the rarified atmosphere of book launches, poetry authors and literary criticism, Joanna Murrey-Smith’s Honour trades in more down-to-earth dramatic tropes; that of a husband’s mid-life crisis which fractures his marriage.

George (Richard Yaxley), a distinguished literary journalist falls for an ambitious 28-year old biographer Claudia (Olivia Pinwell) and walks out on his 32-year marriage to the devastating shock of his long-standing wife Honor (Meg Hinselwood) and the disgust of his student daughter Sophie (Issy Mowen).

Les Misérables

By Claude-Michel Schonberg & Alain Boublil. Based on the novel by Victor Hugo. Music: Claude-Michel Boublil. Lyrics: Herbert Kretzmer. Ipswich Musical Theatre. Director: Christopher Bradtke. Musical Director: Robert Clark. Choreography: Ruth Gabriel. Civic Centre, Ipswich. 8-17 September 2017

Ipswich Musical Theatre’s production of Les Misérables was top of the range community theatre – thrilling, emotional and exciting. I have rarely heard the show sung as well, nor has there been so much clarity in the story as there was in Christopher Bradtke’s concise direction. Bradtke, who’s Melbourne based and who recently directed the show for CLOC (who provided the set and costumes for this production), brings his considerable expertise and theatrical savvy to the project.

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