Reviews

It’s been a while

By Jordy Shea. Smoking Gun Theatre. King Street Theatre (Sydney). July 16 – 19, 2014.

Just a few days shy of his 21stbirthday, Jordy Shea enjoyed the thrill of a positive audience response to the premiere of his first play, that appropriately taps into many issues affecting young people.

It’s been a while is a one act play about a group of friends who take a holiday on the beach to celebrate the end of school.

The hedonism has authenticity, as the teenagers revel in their new found adult freedom to sample some of life’s elicit pleasures.

There are five on the trip which proves to be an awkward number.

Cordelia, Mein Kind

Concept/Co-Creator/Film and Performer: Debroah Leiser-Moore. Co-Creator/Director Meredith Rogers. Choreographer: Sally Smith. La Mama (Vic). July 16 – 20, 2014.

Cordelia, Mein Kind is a well-honed, tightly woven, one-woman performance that responds to the subjective questioning most women surely do, as daughters, when watching or thinking about the Father/Daughter relationship in Shakespeare’s King Lear.  As such it is very moving and satisfying amalgam of skilled performer working with multi–media to touch on some poignant and elusive truths about many things including identity and culture that relate to heritage.

Sweet Fanny Adams

By Peter Pinne and Don Battye. Nambour Lind Lane Theatre. Directed by Errol R J Morrison. 12 – 26 July 2014

Forty years ago Australian composers Peter Pinne and Don Battye created the musical Sweet Fanny Adams, an unashamedly simple tale of two Sydney brothel madams, Fanny Adams and Kitty Lang, filled with lots of toe-tapping songs. Billed as a musical romp through the seedier side of Sydney in the 1930s, the two lead characters are loosely on the infamous underworld Sydney madams Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh (recently profiled in Channel Nine’s Underbelly: Razor).

La Boheme

Opera by Giacomo Puccini. Libretto: Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scenes de la vie de boheme by Henri Merger. Opera Q. Director: Craig Ilott. Conductor: Guy Noble. Assistant Director: Jason Barry-Smith. Designer: Penny Challen. Lighting Design: David Walters. Conservatorium Theatre, Brisbane, 12 July – 2 August 2014 and touring.

La Boheme is indestructible. No matter how many times it is updated or reimagined Puccini’s power to move an audience with his musical brilliance is still overwhelming. Opera Q’s production is a classic example. Reset on Christmas Eve 1913, this collection of impecunious Parisian Bohemians thrills us all over again.

The Flock and the Nest

By Glyn Roberts. St Michael’s Grammar School and Red Stitch Actors Theatre present a Red Stitch Writers Production. St Michael’s Drama Studio. 10 – 19 July 2014

The Flock and the Nest serves the purpose of stunning learning vehicle and great showpiece of what can be accomplished when a theatre company collaborates with a school on a purpose-written text by a spirited young Playwright.  

The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's Production of Macbeth

By David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jr. Directed by Gail Storm. Marloo Theatre, Greenmount, WA. July 4-19, 2014.

Darlington Theatre Players' Production of The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's Production of Macbeth, is a delightful piece of dribble that is very entertaining and a pleasant way to while away an afternoon or evening.

The cast appear to be having a ball in this play within a play, as the Farndale women compete in a festival competition under the gaze of respected adjudicator George Peach - played in a a very funny performance by Ray Egan.

The King and I

Music by Richard Rodgers. Book and Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein 11. Directed by Christopher Renshaw. From 12th June, Princess Theatre, Melbourne.

“Some shows date quickly, and revivals serve to point out their shortcomings. Others simply grow better with age, their magic beguiling generation after generation. The King and I is the epitome of the latter. This exquisitely mounted show may well be the best musical you ever see, and I really do mean EVER.”

The Hatpin

By Peter Rutherford and James Millar. Directed by Graeme Johnston. Musical Direction by Paul Lawrence Olsen. Old Mill Theatre, South Perth, WA. 11-26 July 2014

This relatively new Australian musical by WAAPA graduates Peter Rutherford and James Millar is being performed for the first time in Western Australia at the atmospheric and era-appropriate Old Mill Theatre in South Perth.

Oliver!

By Lionel Bart. Eltham Little Theatre. Director/Choreographer: Amy Jenkins. Musical Director: Emily Crawford. July 11 – 27, 2014

There was much to enjoy in ELT’s production of Oliver! ELT generally perform straight plays and a junior musical each year. These have been very successful, but it is many years since they have mounted a musical for all ages.

The show opens with the kids singing “Food, Glorious Food”, and the singing was as good as I’ve heard from juniors in a musical. However, they could have been directed to show more expression and animation on stage. Other chorus numbers were musically just as good.

The Effect

By Lucy Prebble. Sydney Theatre Company and Queensland Theatre Company. Wharf 1 Theatre, Sydney. Director: Sarah Goodes. 10 July – 16 August 2014

You’ve probably seen Angie Milliken on the cover of the current Stage Whispers holding a gleaming human brain. The ‘alas poor Yorick’ moment is from Lucy Prebble’s adult investigation into love, depression and drug trials; and Ms Milliken engages the brain in a desperate conversation even more troubled than Hamlet’s.