Reviews

Primary Trust

By Eboni Booth. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. Directed by Darren Yap. 19 June – 12 July, 2025

Orphaned at 10, now nearing 40, Kenneth leads a solitary life, a life of extreme alienation. He’s a black man and has worked for 20 years at a second-hand book shop in a small, predominately white, town outside of Rochester, New York. His only friend is Bert, also black, and they spend many hours together drinking Mai Tais, Hawaiian rum cocktails, in a local bar. But we soon discover that Bert is wholly imaginary. Kenneth is in real trouble.

2 Short 2 Tiny - One Act Season 2025

By Joseph O’Connor, Gary Duggan, Sean McLoughlin, and Deirdre Kinahan. Irish Theatre Players. Directed by Caroline McDonnell and Denice Byrne. Wembley Community Centre, WA. Jun 12-21, 2025

Irish Theatre Players One Act Season consisted of four short Irish two-handers, with two directors. Performing for the first time at Wembley Community Hall, after the loss of their long-term venue, the plays shared a stage manager Grainne Friel and a Lighting and Sound Coordinator Fiona Reid.

Grainne also coordinated the sets, props and costumes.

Strictly Baz Luhrmann: The Concert

Opera Australia. Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House. June 23 & 24, 2025

It’s easy to forget that almost none of the songs in Baz Luhrmann’s movies are original - but rather covers fashioned by his fantastic aesthetic into ultimate movie moments.

Aphrodite

By Nico Muhly, with a libretto by Laura Lethlan. Sydney Chamber Opera with Omega Ensemble at Carriageworks, Eveleigh, NSW. June 20 – 28, 2025.

 

In an opulent hotel suite the attractive, best-selling author of The Aphrodite Complex and now documentary relishes her success. Her  critique, we learn, is that time has stripped the once multifaceted goddess of female virtues and left her simply as the goddess of beauty. 

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Book by John Cameron Mitchell. Music & Lyrics by Stephen Trask. GWB Entertainment and Andrew Henry Presents, in association with RISING. Atheneum, Collins Street. 18 – 29 June 2025

Here is a ‘rock opera’ that is fearlessly more than a rock opera: it is a layered mash-up of genres, musical references and allusions – from the glam rock of 1970s Bowie, plus Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, the Velvet underground and more – Mitchell and Trask repurposing the lyrics of many songs to fit the story.  Hedwig uses rock music, cabaret, on-stage drama, a confessional narrative, a rock concert setting and melds it all into one loud, glittering, angry, funny eighty-five minutes.

Pete Murray Solo Acoustic Tour

Presented by QPAC and TEG Live. Lyric Theatre, 21 Jun 2025, 7:30pm

If you’re in the mood for a concert that feels less like a stadium spectacle and more like a warm catch-up with an old friend who happens to be a chart-topping singer-songwriter, Pete Murray’s solo acoustic tour is the ticket. Brisbane’s Lyric Theatre was the perfect setting for this intimate and heartfelt performance, with the stage dressed simply yet elegantly in flickering candlelight (flameless, naturally), subtle haze and low golden glows that framed the performers like memories in a photo album.

Soldier Boy

By Anthony Hill, adapted from his novel. Theatre Works, St Kilda. 19 June – 5 July 2025

Soldier Boy tells the story of James (‘Jim’) Martin (Oliver Tapp), who enlists at age 14, and serves at Gallipoli, the youngest Australian to die there in 1915.  Australian audiences will have varying responses to the play.  Some – younger folks - will learn about the costly, futile Gallipoli campaign (and the play sometimes seems designed for them) for the first time.

Cats

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot. John Frost and David Ian for Crossroads Live. Theatre Royal Sydney. Opening Night: June 20, 2025

There was so much nostalgia in the air at the opening night of the 40th anniversary production of Cats, that it felt like the ghosts of Bob and Hazel Hawke were in the foyer.

The Prime Minister and his wife famously attended the premiere in 1985, ahead of a two-year run.

The musical felt like it had returned home to the Theatre Royal, with the stage strewn with rubbish for the Jellicle Ball and felines creeping up through the audience.

Bonnie and Clyde

Music by Frank Wildhorn, lyrics by Don Black and book by Ivan Menchell. Marie Clark Musical Theatre. Arts Theatre, Angus St Adelaide. June 20 – 28, 2025

Marie Clark Musical Theatre have a hit on their hands with their engaging  production of Bonnie and Clyde. As Mary Poppins would say, it’s “practically perfect in every way”!

With music by Frank Wildhorn, lyrics by Don Black and a book by Ivan Menchell. The world premiere took place in November 2009. Wildhorn described the music as a "non-traditional score, combining rockabilly, blues and gospel music"

Koreaboo

By Michelle Lim Davidson. Director Jessica Arthur. Griffin Theatre Company. Downstairs Belvoir St Theatre. 14 Jun – 20 July, 2025

Since the 1950s over 200,000 Korean children have been sent abroad for adoption, many of them to Australia. Michelle Lim Davison was one of them. It wasn’t until she began searching for her biological family that she realised she was one of a global community of Korean adoptees “reclaiming its past and redefining its future”.

“This play,” she explains, “is one small part of that reclamation. It was inspired by my life, but it’s not a documentary. It’s imagined from reality.”

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