Reviews

Entering a performance by the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Sydney is unlike any other amateur company in Sydney. You settle into your seat in the very posh Shore School theatre and look into the pit. There are members of the orchestra as far as the eye can see. I lost count when I got past 30.

Under the baton of Rod Mounjed the melodies of Arthur Sullivan were polished and sparkling.  As for the words, well that is a different matter. Wordsmith Melvyn Morrow was commissioned to write some updates.

Christmas – that joyful time of family and togetherness we spend with people we didn’t choose and would rather not, when antipathies and resentments erupt and when hangovers of different kinds ensue.  Thus, the potential Christmas contrived by Nakkiah Lui in her play, which brings together two families, one indigenous – the Gibsons - one white – the Smiths - each with their own secrets, delusions and entrenched prejudices.

High Performance Packing Tape is proper festival fare.  It is ‘out there’, experimental and risky.  At first it feels dull and abstemious and elicits a sense of weary cynicism but slowly it builds, with a dogged sincerity, and, transporting the audience, it ends on a high evocative note.

Like so many, I saw a number of Austen Tayshus shows in the 80’s in pubs and clubs where you would leave drenched in sweat and feeling like you had just done 9 rounds of cage wrestling with Andre the Giant and a Grizzly bear. The latest offering by Austen Tayshus at the Bondi Pavillion still leaves you battered and bruised but dying for more.

Austen Tayshus (aka Sandy Gutman) is a performer like no other. This is not a show comprised of mundane observational gags nor is it simply vulgar, crass humour.