Reviews

The Lighthouse

Arts Centre Melbourne presents an interactive light and sound wonderland by Patch Theatre. Artistic Director: Geoff Cobham. State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne. 6 - 17 July, 2021.

This critically acclaimed production won the 2020 Ruby Award for Best Work or Event at the Adelaide Festival. The Lighthouse takes the audience on a journey through a series of rooms exploring the innovative use of light, sound, perspective and reflection. With its labyrinth of interconnected rooms on various levels culminating with performances on its main stage, the State Theatre, Melbourne is a great venue choice.

Still

By Jen Silverman. Heartstring Theatre and Stillbirth Foundation. At fortyfivedownstairs, Flinders Lane, Melbourne. 30 June – 11 July 2021

Do not expect naturalism.  In another remarkable flight of imagination, playwright Jen Silverman (Wink, The Moors) puts on stage not just a grieving mother but also her two days dead stillborn, the guilty mid-wife, and a bitter, misanthropic teenage dominatrix.  There is no natural cause and effect here – except for the characters’ emotions.  The story is ‘absurd’, but Ms Silverman’s purpose is to explore what is under or behind the natural, that is so often presented as ‘naturalism’ – and make us question it.&

The Governor’s Family

By Beatrix Christian. Canberra Repertory, directed by Tony Llewellyn-Jones. Canberra REP Theatre, 1–17 July 2021.

It’s 1897.  in Government House, The Governor of New South Wales, Howard Mountgarret (played with a good emotional range by Peter Holland) faces some difficulties as the Irish malcontents — spurred on, if he only knew it, by his brash headstrong cross-dressing socialist feminist daughter, Lara (Caitlin Baker) &m

The Regina Monologues

Written and directed by Sharmini Kumar. Presented by 24 Carrot Productions. Meat Market Stables, 2 Wreckyn Street, North Melbourne. 17 – 19 June, 2021.

This is a delightful concept with a fabulous range and choice of historical women. The vast array of characters included Mary Queen of Scots (Fiona Crombie), Alexandra of Bavaria (Liliana Braumberger), Sophia Duleep Singh (Jazba Singh), Isabella of Spain (Joana Costa), Eleanor of Aquitaine (Sonia Marcon), Matilda of England (Madalyn McCandless), Elizabeth of Austria (Emily Scerri), Hortense Bonaparte (Emma Jevons), Himiko (Seon Williams), Persephone (Avril Good), Virgin Mary (Delaram Ahmadi), Njinga (serious meerkat), and Catherine the Great (Danielle Robinson).

Are You Lonesome Tonight

Opera Queensland. 27 June, 2021. Brisbane Racing Club, Eagle Farm Raceway

Opera Queensland's regional tour of Are You Lonesome Tonight has been the largest and longest tour mounted by the organisation to celebrate its 40th birthday this year. The tour started on 4 May in Rockhampton and has covered more than 7000 kilometres and reached 30 regional and remote Queensland communities. Performance spaces included under the stars at Roma Saleyards, and iconic venues such as the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame in Longreach and the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton.

Singing Swallows

By Romi Kupfer. Theatre Works (Vic). Jun 23 – Jul 4, 2021

Stories are created to entertain and are used to explain and illustrate abstract ideas or concepts in a way that makes them attainable. Singing Swallows, created and performed by Romi Kupfer, is a wonderful new storytelling theatrical experience about young Holocaust survivors; its aim is to prick ears and spark imagination not just for the young, but for everyone.

Alan Cumming is Not Acting His Age

Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Festival Theatre, June 26, 2021. Touring: Brisbane, June 30; Gold Coast, July 4; Perth, July 9; Melbourne, July 10.

Alan Cumming is not acting his age… and he is proud of it.

This year’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival has been treated to the imagination and brilliance of Alan Cumming as Artistic Director. During the Festival we have seen glimpses of his creativity and daring through the choices he has made for the programme, and delightfully, his show Alan Cumming is Not Acting His Age was another chance to experience the eclectic talent that is this man.

Quartet

By Ronald Harwood. Villanova Players. Ron Hurley Theatre, Seven Hill, Qld. 26 June – 11 July 2021

Quartet has become a popular title on the amateur circuit. Its gold-class pedigree includes a West End season in 1999, and a film which starred Maggie Smith, Pauline Collins, Tom Courtney and Bill Connelly. It’s another in a series of plays and movies for an older audience like Ladies In Lavender, and it fits the bill nicely.

Iphigenia in Splott

By Gary Owen. Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre, East St Kilda. 19 June – 18 July 2021

What Iphigenia in Splott does is tell a gripping story – with a sting in the tail.  The story is all the more gripping in its telling here by Jessica Clarke.  Alone on stage for close to ninety minutes - and with a Welsh accent too - she gives us a brilliant performance, by turns precise, whimsical, childlike, shocking, and moving. 

Hear Me Roar - Unplugged

Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2021. Dunstan Playhouse. June 25-26, 2021

Billed as ‘an uplifting concert experience celebrating the women whose music changed the world’, Hear Me Roar - Unplugged was certainly a satisfying balm for our post-Covid cultural appetites during the 2021 Adelaide Cabaret Festival, full of great songs and, for the most part, setting up a joyous dance party vibe.  I am still trying to work out just what the ‘unplugged’ refers to though, given the very much electrified technical set up.  The first iteration of this show, conceived and directed by Trevor Ashley, was shown at the Sydney Opera House