Reviews

Things I Know To Be True

By Andrew Bovell. Theatre Works, St Kilda. 19 April – 4 May 2024

At the beginning, Rosie (Eva Rees), youngest of the Price family children, backpacking in Europe, tells us that after her heart was broken, she tried to make a list of all the things she knew to be true… but she found in the end that it was a very short list.  This is beautiful writing from Andrew Bovell.  The speech – plus Rees’ sweet sincerity - gives us Rosie and her demolished innocence, and makes us care for her, and it states a key theme of this moving 2016 play about ‘ordinary people’. 

Do You Mind?

Written and Performed by Shay Debney. Presented by Rachael Adamson and RaCreate. Directed by Julia Robertson. The Old Fitz Theatre, Sydney. 23 – 27 April, 2024

The smallish (16) audience enters the Old Fitz theatre via the stage, on which sits a box about 3’x2’x3’. The play begins when the lid flies open and out pops Melbourne writer and performer Shay Debney, in a blue jumpsuit, bearded, intent and full of questions.

He talks very fast and the few questions are for his audience. Well, more than a few actually. He’s got an inexhaustible flow of mainly unanswerable questions – 294 noted at one point – and many, many more after that.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

By William Shakespeare. Presented by Bell Shakespeare. Directed by Peter Evans. Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne, 100 St Kilda Rd, Southbank. 25 April - 11 May 2024.

As one of Shakespeare’s light-hearted comedies with many fantastical aspects, this text is not normally associated with being edgy and somewhat dark in its nature. This production takes some licence with the casting and sequencing of events and creates a very moody piece without losing any of the impish humour. In fact, this highlights the contrast between the eerie ethereal creatures that inhabit the wooded space and the other spheres represented in the play. The magic of the forest creatures is created more through subversion and daring than stardust.

Songbird

By Shakara Walley. Yirra Yaakin. Directed by Cezera Critti-Schnaars. The Studio, Subiaco Arts Centre, WA. Apr 19 - May 4, 2024

Yirra Yaakin’s Songbird is a touching little play, having a season at Subiaco Arts Centre, before embarking on a WA regional tour. Written by young writer Shakara Walley and directed by Cezera Critti-Schnaars, both around the same age as the characters in this play, it augurs well for the future of indigenous theatre in WA.

Two Ladies and an Emu

Written by Carla Moore. The Theatre on Chester, Epping, NSW. Directed by Tracey Okeby Lucan. April 12 - May 4, 2023

It’s not often that you walk into a small community theatre staging the world premiere of a locally written play with such an ambitious narrative.

Two Ladies and an Emu has a Priscillia Queen of the Desert come Thelma and Louise vehicle centred plot. In this instance two women are on a road trip in outback Australia traversing long dusty highways and visiting campsites and towns along the way.

The Front Page

By Ben Hecht and Charles Macarthur, adaptated by Nicholas Papademetriou. New Theatre, Newtown. April 23 – May 18, 2024

The multitude of productions following the Chicago premiere of this black comedy in 1928 have reportedly all set a cracking pace with the dialogue.  The screenplay of one version, His Girl Friday, with Cary Grant and Rosaland Russell, goes further showing the actors always speaking over each other.

Garage Girls

By Candace Miles, Madelaine Nunn & Anna Rodway. Created by Carolyn Bock, Helen Hopkins (Shift Theatre) and Candace Miles, Madelaine Nunn & Anna Rodway (Three Birds Theatre). La Mama Courthouse. 24 April – 5 May 2024

Here’s a spirited show about Alice Anderson (played with endearing energy by Madelaine Nunn).  A motor car afficionado, Alice was a pioneering but now largely forgotten figure from 1920s Melbourne.  Single-handed, she founded of Australia’s first (and only?) ‘all-girl’ motor garage.  She did try to get a job in a regular garage but it’s the 1920s and she is, of course, laughed out the door. 

Toy Symphony

By Michael Gow. Ad Astra. The Loading Dock Theatre. Directed by Michelle Carey. April 20 - 27, 2024

The biggest star of the night was the ‘foyer’ to the venue – the Loading Dock Theatre – which is one of three new performance spaces part of Qtopia Sydney.

Fools!

Pip Theatre, 20 Park Road, Milton, Brisbane. Produced by Allentertainment. 21st & 28th April, 2024

FOOLS! bursts onto the stage at Pip Theatre, offering audiences an uproarious evening of interactive entertainment. FOOLS! is mostly family-friendly, but brace yourself for a sprinkle of cheeky innuendos that'll have you chuckling into your popcorn.

Audience participation is the heart of FOOLS!, and it doesn't disappoint. From wacky games like "Beer Pom" (think beer pong meets gymnastics) or audience wide games of guess who, everyone got a chance to shine.

The King’s Player

Written & performed by Tref Gare. Victorian Theatre Company. Alex Theatre Studio, St Kilda. 19 – 26 April 2024

As his eponymous character, Tref Gare is dressed in motley, a barefoot, grubby traveling player of the Middle Ages.  Before the show – in costume but not yet in character - he roams the audience (some of whom, I notice, are very good Melbourne actors) as they arrive, welcoming them and explaining his intriguing backdrop screen which is behind an otherwise bare stage.  The screen is dense with hectic imagery drawn by a skilled hand and it’s by Jen Ellis Stevens. 

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