Reviews

West Side Story

Music: Leonard Bernstein. Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim. Book: Arthur Laurents. Lumina Theatre Co. Director: Daryl Stevenson. Musical Director: Daniel Aguiar. Choreographer: Narada Edgar. Aquinas College, Ringwood. Au 25 – Sep 2, 2017.

Lumina Theatre Co is a relatively new company based at Aquinas College in Ringwood, and this was their second production. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but what I got was a lot of youthful energy from the mainly young cast, and a lot of pathos, as the drama was fully realised.

Sets were minimal, with a cyclone fence and walkway at the back and various pieces of furniture moved on and off as appropriate. This worked well because of the excellent lighting.

Beep

Windmill Theatre Co in association with Adelaide Festival Centre. Writer and Co-Creator Katherine Fyffe; Co-Creator and Director Sam Haren; Designer and Co-Creator Jonathon Oxlade; Composer Luke Smiles; Puppet Maker/Consultancy Tamara Rewse; Technical Designer Chris Petridis. Apace Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre. Aug 24 – Sep 3, 2017.

Beep was a delight from start to finish. It started with my granddaughter asking her mother to photograph her standing by the poster of the show and finished with her going up to meet Mort and Beep at the end of the show. In between, I laughed, wondered, enjoyed and marvelled at how much a “simple” story supposedly created for the youngest of audiences had so much to teach all of us.

My Fair Lady

By Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe. Opera Australia / John Frost. Directed by Julie Andrews. Capitol Theatre, Sydney. 29 August - 8 October, 2017

There are a few moments in Opera Australia’s triumphant production of My Fair Lady that warrant spontaneous applause. A tableau at the Ascot races, with resplendent blacks and whites; rows and rows of chandeliers flown in for the glorious ballroom scene; and, of course, the most fun number of the show, “Get Me to the Church on Time”, set in a very realistic Covent Gardens markets. Rarely has a musical looked so good on an Australian stage.

A Scandal in the Weimar

By Jennifer Piper and Claire Bowen. wit incorporated (Victoria). Bluestone Church Arts Space. Director: Belinda Campbell. August 25 - September 9, 2017 as part of the Due West Festival

‘Family isn’t just people,’ says Ebony McGuire as Irene Adler, ‘it’s place.’

A Scandal in the Weimarfinds its origins in the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes story, A Scandal in Bohemia.

This wit incorporated version flips gender roles and addresses issues of place.

Arché

Melbourne Ballet Company. Directed and choreographed by Simon Hoy. The Q, Queanbeyan. 26 to 27 August 2017 and touring to Melbourne

Adding to music from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake a sequence of disparate pieces by Einaudi, Morricone, and Elgar, Melbourne Ballet Company’s director and resident choreographer Simon Hoy has created a surprisingly integrated soundtrack to which he has choreographed a visually charming and often arresting ballet.

Lip Service

By John Misto. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. Director: Nicole Buffoni. 17 August – 30 September, 2017

Something is wrong. The audience all round is laughing fit to burst while I am unable to crack a smile. The laughs get bigger as the play sets sail and I am left on the shore, lonely and untouched. John Misto’s biographical play about the 1950’s ladies of New York glamour, Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, is not working for me. 

The Father

By Florian Zeller, translated by Christopher Hampton. Sydney Theatre Company / Melbourne Theatre Company. Director: Damien Ryan. Wharf 1 Theatre, Sydney. 24 August – 21 October, 2017

There’s so much in The Father that doesn’t seem right. The wall-mounted telephone surely was in the centre of the set a few minutes ago, and now it’s on a stage-left wall. If must have been moved silently during one of intense blackouts that punctuate the production. 

That’s nothing. Soon whole tables disappear, dinner settings, comfortable chairs: the whole room is crumbling, insubstantial. Just like André, the Father himself, played by John Bell.

The Last Five Years

Written and Composed by Jason Robert Brown. Segue Productions. Music Director and Director Ben Stefanoff. Star Theatres Adelaide. August 24 – 26, 2017.

The Last Five Years is the inaugural production of Segue Productions.

The Absence of Knowing: Four Men and Dog Play

By Elvis Peeters. Directed by Richard Murphet. La Mama Theatre, Faraday Street, Carlton, VIC. 17 August – 3 September 2017

This strikingly original production of two short plays by Belgian writer Elvis Peeters is by theatre veteran and award winner Richard Murphet.  Elvis Peeters’ texts supply no scene setting and no directions.  The writing is powerful, but the texts are no more than intertwining and juxtaposed monologues.  There is very little interaction between the characters – at least on the page.  It is up to the director what he or she does with this.  What Mr Murphet does is inventive, to say the least; it is also visually and aurally powerful – close to overw

Frailty

Written & directed by Sue Ingleton. Pricking Thumbs Collective. The Engine Room, View Street, Bendigo. 16-20 August 2017

‘Frailty, thy name is woman,’ says Hamlet.  He’s fulminating about his oh-so-recently widowed mother’s o’er hasty marriage to his uncle Claudius.  She’s weak, he thinks; she gave in to Claudius and to base, rank desires – which, really, she is too old to feel…  Really? 

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