Reviews

Considerable Sexual License

By Joel Bray. Darebin Speakeasy. Yirramboi First Nations Festival. Main Hall, Northcote Town Hall Arts Centre. May 5 – 15, 2021

A massive disco ball hangs high, smoke and roving lights reminiscent of an eighties niteclub, set the scene. This is a modern corroboree where people meet, dance and fuck. Considerable Sexual License is the new immersive work by multidisciplinary performer Joel Bray, presented by Darebin Speakeasy in association with the biennial Yirramboi First Nations arts and cultural Festival currently on in Melbourne.

Michael Griffiths: Greatest Hits

fortyfivedownstairs theatre, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne. 5 – 9 May 2021

This collection of classic hits curated by Griffiths expands his repertoire and shows that his style is well suited beyond the usual artists he is renowned for. Cole Porter music features in this show which is otherwise focused on some great favourites from the 80s.

The Time Travel Café

Creative Producer James Elliott. Directed by Kristian Santic. Presented by SpaceFold Technology. The Canvas Club – Tailor Shop, Brisbane. 5 – 23 May, 2021

The Time Travel Café invites audiences to take a trip through time and have a conversation with history. The premise is that you and your fellow time travellers have arrived at a party inhabited by famous historical figures. Best described as semi-scripted, immersive theatre, the entertainers work through several rooms where they perform some scripted pieces and improvise conversations with the crowd.

Theatresports All Stars

Enmore Theatre. Sunday 9th May, 2021

What a treat! The beautifully renovated Enmore Theatre with its custom-designed, monogrammed carpet, all clean and ‘unsticky’, the art deco reliefs all newly painted and picked out in gold - and sixteen improvisation  “All Stars”  introduced and compered by none other than Mr Mathematics, Adam Spencer, himself another Theatresports All Star! What more could one wish for!

Well, a great night of improvised theatre for one thing. And that’s what we got!

A wonderful supportive audience for another thing. We got that too!

Bengal Tiger At The Baghdad Zoo

By Rajiv Joseph. Theatre Guild. Little Theatre, The Cloisters, North Terrace, University of Adelaide. May 8 – 22, 2021

Set in war-torn Baghdad in 2003, interestingly, playwright Rajiv Joseph says that Bengal Tiger At The Baghdad Zoo is not necessarily about war and the conflict in Iraq. A short article in the New York Times in 2003 about bombs destroying the Baghdad Zoo, American soldiers guarding the zoo and a soldier who lost his hand feeding a Bengal tiger which was subsequently shot, inspired Joseph to write this complex, multi-faceted play. The style is known as a documentary drama, using imagined and real places and events.

Beautiful – The Carole King Musical

Book by Douglas McGrath. Music by Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil. Blackout Theatre Company. Director: Jordan Anderson. Musical Director: Koren Beale. Pioneer Theatre Castle Hill. 7-16th May, 2021

It’s a brave company that takes on NSW’s first amateur production of any musical, especially one that is as demanding as Beautiful. Carole King’s story covers over half a century of musical styles, song writers and singers. It’s complex vocally in so many ways – just fancy taking on the role of a singer as talented and internationally loved as Carole King for a start! Or Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann! Or The Drifters! Or The Shirelles!

Euphoria

By Emily Steel. State Theatre Company South Australia. Space Theatre, Adelaide. May 7-15, 2021

Euphoria, written by Emily Steel, shines a light on the issues of mental health in ways that are both joyful and uncomfortable, all at the same time.

This production is one of the best pieces of theatre I have experienced in a very long time: exquisite acting, brilliant staging and direction, with a cleverly told story. This beautiful and, at times, hilariously funny piece, was written by Steel after research and conversations held with many people across towns in regional South Australia.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Musical

By Stephan Elliot and Allan Scott. Directed by Trevor Patient. Platinum Entertainment. Crown Theatre, Perth WA. May 7-30, 2021

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Musical makes its west of the black stump premiere with this big, bright and bold production from Platinum Entertainment at Crown Theatre. Gorgeously slick, with outstanding production values, this is a show worthy of a national tour.

What Is the Matter with Mary Jane? & Slut

By Wendy Harmer & Sancia Robinson (What Is the Matter with Mary Jane?) and Patricia Cornelius (Slut). Fourth Wall Theatre Co. St Martins Theatre, South Yarra. 6 – 15 May 2021

The two one-act plays that make up this double bill depict conditions or the cruel prejudices that afflict (almost exclusively) women.  In What Is the Matter with Mary Jane? it is anorexia nervosa and bulimia.  In Slut, it is the misogyny and double standards (and jealousy?) that get a woman labelled ‘slut’.  Both plays give rise to unfashionable emotions– in the current climate - since in both plays the persecutors on stage are other women.

A Room of One’s Own

Written by Virginia Woolf. Adapted for the Stage by Carissa Licciardello & Tom Wright. Belvoir. Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir Street Theatre. May 6 – 23. 2021

How the spirits of female students must have soared when they heard Virginia Woolf’s two lectures at Cambridge in 1928! Published soon after, it’s here given its third adaptation for performance. 

A Room of One’s Own is ostensibly about women in fiction, as we follow Woolf’s sharp mind and earnest sympathy unravelling millenniums of misogyny and oppressive traditions which left the world with so few female writers.

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