Reviews

Eureka Day

By Jonathon Spector. Seymour Centre and Outhouse Theatre Co, New York, at Seymour Centre, Sydney. Directed by Craig Baldwin. May 29 to June 21, 2025

Written in 2017 before the dreaded international COVID shutdown, this excellent comedy/drama is prescient about how we should behave in such circumstances. When staff at the privileged Eureka Day Elementary school in California are faced with an outbreak of mumps, they panic in all well-meaning directions displaying, in author Jonathan Spector’s steely view, everything but firm togetherness.

The Revlon Girl

By Neil Anthony Docking. Hunters Hill Theatre. Director: Jennifer Willison. Club Ryde. 30 May – 22 June, 2025

Jennifer Willison is a director who finds plays that extend her cast and her audience. The Revlon Girl is no exception. It is a play about coping with fear and loss resulting from an unimaginable event.

In the little coal mining village of Aberfan in Wales on 21st October 1966 at 9.15am, a 34-metre-high tip of colliery spoil slid down a hillside above the town. The wet, black slurry engulfed a primary school and a village street killing 116 children and 28 adults.

Romeo and Juliet

By William Shakespeare, adapted by Ollie Howlett. The Barden Party. Chapel off Chapel, Prahran. 26 May – 1 June 2025

There’s a kind of roughhouse, ad hoc, spontaneous, let’s-put-on-a-show quality to Barden Party’s version of Romeo and Juliet.  It’s a calculated effect – or they’ve made a distinct virtue out of necessity.  They wander about, welcoming us as we wander in.  Relaxed, informal - as if it’s a party about to start.

Ghostlight, Choir In The Pub and Busker’s Alley

Australian Musical Theatre Festival. May 2025

Ghostlight

Mary Poppins

By P. L.Travers, Robert M. Sherman, Richard B. Sherman, and Julian Fellows. Stray Cats. Directed by Karen Francis. Boardwalk Theatre, Mandurah Performing Arts Centre, WA. May 8-11, 2025

Stray Cats’ Mary Poppins was a large-scale production with high production values, featuring a huge cast and a lot of colour.

Clever sets, designed by Bronwyn White and Karen Francis, used multiple levels, lots of trucks and clever projections to create a bright, magical world that enchanted the audience. Lots of colour in the costumes - especially in the production numbers, while lighting designed by Tony Gordon and Karen Francis also used colour to effect.

Blue

By Thomas Weatherall. Black Swan. Directed by Ian Wilkes. Studio Underground, Black Swan State Theatre Centre, WA. May 23 - Jun 8, 2025

Following a number of one person shows from Black Swan in the past few years, notably Every Brilliant Thing, RGB – Of Many, One and Prima Facie, comes another excellent solo production. A new play from Australian actor and playwright Thomas Weatherall, this is heartfelt, moving and topical, and deals with sensitive and tragic issues while allowing optimism and moments of humor.

Tyran Parke presents "A Conversation with…"

Australian Musical Theatre Festival 2025

Caroline O’Connor at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, Launceston.

Day 2, May 22, 2025.

I’m a fan of podcasts - particularly interviews with/between actors, directors and musicians and the interviewer happens to be extremely knowledgeable about the industry and career of their interview subject. ('WTF' with Marc Maron and 'Talk Easy' with Sam Fragoso are two great examples). But then there are interviews between artists who also happen to be great friends - these interviews are the best!

Batshit

Written by Leah Shelton & Christine Shelton in collaboration with Ursula Martinez. Performed by Leah Shelton. Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne. 28 May – 1 June 2025

One of Leah Shelton’s great strengths is in the creation of subversive, disturbing images.  Here the show begins with Shelton as the cliché blonde party girl in a flouncy cocktail frock but constrained by white bands of leather wrapped around her – one band jams her mouth, like a gag – impeding her movements and her speech.  The import of this is clear.  It’s the image on the poster for the show – an image that maybe attracted at least some of the audience.

Later, the frock is accessorised with an axe...

Freaky Friday

Music by Tom Kitt. Lyrics by Brian Yorkey. Book by Bridget Carpenter. Based on the novel by Mary Rodgers and the Disney Film. Hills Musical Theatre Co. Model Farms High School Auditorium, Baulkham Hills. May 23 – 31, 2025.

Stepping into the whimsical world of Freaky Friday: The Musical feels akin to attending a delightfully eccentric wedding buffet, where laughter and Disney magic are the main courses.

The Songs That Got Away

Written and performed by Johanna Allen. Australian Musical Theatre Festival, Launceston. May 25, 2025

The name Hymen Arluck is not memorable. It’s a good thing he changed it to Harold Arlen as he embarked on his brilliant career as a composer. 

Except, as it turns out, that name didn’t ring as many bells as it should have, either. As a fan of his personal contribution to what has become known as The Great American Songbook, I must confess - in retrospect – that I probably attributed most of his songs to the Gershwins, Irving Berlin or Cole Porter.

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