Reviews

Romeo & Juliet

By William Shakespeare. Presented by the Australian Shakespeare Company. Directed by Glenn Elston. Southern Cross Lawn, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. 10 February - 11 March 2023.

The story of Romeo & Juliet is refreshingly told in this production by going back to the fundamental elements of the play. The casting of the show is particularly well done. Romeo (Wolfgang Reed) and Juliet (Tiffany Wong) capture the youthful and exuberant nature of the characters perfectly. They are dreamy but not naive and they are passionate but not unthinking. Reed gives his Romeo a great deal of charm and Wong strikes a good balance between innocence and determination. The role of Nurse (Alison Whyte) is given incredible shape and importance.

SILENCE!

Adelaide Fringe – Elder Park, 17-19 February 2023

Wow. That was the most common phrase I heard leaving Elder Park at the end of the opening night of this mini-festival at the Fringe. And ‘wow’ is a great word to start with: there’s a slow build-up to the main event, with live music gracing the side stage, including an excellent performance from Melbourne group ‘Lastlings’ ,who got the all-ages crowd dancing. There are the usual overpriced food-trucks and bars, and the main attraction, the French performance artists ‘Les Commandos Percu’, keep us waiting a little.

The Crocodile

By Tom Basden – after Fyodor Dostoevsky. Spinning Plates Co. fortyfivedownstairs, Flinders Lane. 15 – 26 February 2023

In this impeccable show, every element – text, cast, direction, costumes, set design, sound and lighting – all cohere into a brilliant piece of theatreIt is fun, it is funny, it is sharp and dazzling, and we are often dumbfounded at just how good it is – several cuts above so much else that is on offer.

The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society production of Macbeth

By David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jr. Lane Cove Theatre Company. The Performance Space @ St Aidan's, 1 Christina Street, Longueville. February 10 – 26, 2023

The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society production of Macbeth is first and foremost not something that you'd want to have to print on a marquee!!  That being said, the silliness implied by the wordy title really sets the tone of the frivolity to follow. Lane Cove Theatre Company (LCTC) has embraced the sheer madness of the plot, whereby whatever CAN go wrong, WILL go wrong, despite the sincerity and earnestness of those who make it on stage.

Rumours

By Neil Simon, Tea Tree Players Theatre, SA. 15-25 February 2023

Neil Simon was a prolific and award-winning playwright, his works from the 1960s such as Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple hugely popular with audiences and critics. When he wrote Rumors (sic) in 1988, his own marriage was breaking up and he thought he’d write his first farce. The focus of Simon’s work was often the everyday lives and challenges of middle-class people, exploring marital friction for laughs, so this shouldn’t have been a stretch for him.

Not All Dictators

Written by Tiffany Barton, Natali Blok & Kate Smurthwaite. La Mama Courthouse. 15 – 26 February 2023

Here is an anarchic mash-up of Shakespeare (Macbeth but here called MacPutin), Euripides (Medea), the Bible (I think), verbatim accounts of war crimes against women and some original text.  Three raunchy witches or goddesses – Hecate (Victoria Haslam) [the goddess or Shakespeare’s witch?], Jezebel (Prue Daniel) [the evil queen?] and Morgan (Melina Wylie) [Le Fay?], each with a band of black across their eyes, greet each other, josh, tease, roll about, giggling as they take photos of each other’s crotches.  It’s a rather ad hoc ass

Nosferatu

By Keziah Warner. Directed by Bridget Balodis. Malthouse Theatre, 113 Sturt Street Southbank. 10 February – 5 March, 2023.

This is a clever adaptation of the original silent German Expressionist film which was itself an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. This heritage is clearly acknowledged in the play by paying homage to some of the staple elements such as the homoerotic undertones and the use of the motifs of blood and sucking to express both eroticism and violence. 

Songs of the Flesh

Based on texts by Chris Beckey. The Danger Ensemble. Theatre Works, Explosives Factory, Inkerman Street, St Kilda. 8 – 18 February, 2023

At first, we might say that Songs of the Flesh is a familiar, possibly conventional narrative – even if the mode of presentation is startlingly different.  A gay coming of age story that begins as a fairy tale and ends on a city’s mean streets, its defiant happy ending in doubt.  When director Steven Mitchell Wright began work, he even wondered – to writer Chris Beckey – if the play was ‘redundant’. 

The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?

By Edward Albee. State Theatre of South Australia. Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre. 10 – 28 February 2023

The State Theatre of South Australia’s production of Edward Albee’s The Goat or, Who is Sylvia, directed by Mitchell Butel, and featuring a stellar cast and crew, is light, bright, funny, and highly entertaining. Observing Aristotle’s dramatic ‘Unities’ of continual time, place, and action, the drama takes place over one day in the living room of wealthy upper-middle class American couple, Martin and Stevie, somewhere in America; probably on the east coast but not definite re location (nor accents).

Prima Facie

By Suzie Miller. Melbourne Theatre Company. Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne. Directed by Lee Lewis. 8 February — 25 March 2023.

This stunning production brings together a variety of finely tuned theatrical elements to achieve maximum impact. The writing in this text is complex and sophisticated but it is combined with a clarity of emotions that make the intricacies of this drama extremely accessible. The vibrancy of the detail is fascinating and easily draws the audience into a world that is normally abstruse and exclusive. 

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