Category Archives: Theatre

Review: Coriolanus (Bell Shakespeare)

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Venue: The Neilson Nutshell (Sydney NSW), Jun 20 – Jul 19, 2025
Playwright: William Shakespeare
Director: Peter Evans
Cast: Jules Billington, Peter Carroll, Septimus Caton, Marco Chiappi, Suzannah McDonald, Ruby Maishman, Joshua Monaghan, Gareth Reeves, Matilda Ridgway, Hazem Shammas, Anthony Taufa, Brigid Zengeni
Images by Brett Boardman

Theatre review
The protagonist in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus may appear every bit the triumphant warrior, but the play reveals that true heroism cannot exist without integrity. Driven by a hunger for status and glory, Coriolanus engages in political manoeuvres to attain the consulship, giving little consideration to the greater good. While the Roman people hold the power to vote in their own interest, the knowledge they are given is seldom complete, and often shaped by manipulation rather than truth.

It is an important message no matter the epoch, even as Shakespeare’s work grows increasingly alienating through the centuries. Director Peter Evans takes on the challenge of recontextualising the piece, attempting to give it a modern sheen. A somewhat contemporised sensibility is paired with a distinctly 21st-century set design—complete with a sliding platform that is repositioned slightly too often. Costumes by Ella Butler are well-fitted, and intentionally dour in style. Lights by Amelia Lever-Davidson and sound by Max Lyandvert, offer elegant enhancements to the drama, in a production that always looks sharp.

Such is the charisma of leading man Hazem Shammas that, even in the face of Coriolanus’s failings, we are never entirely disdainful of the character, and are held in thrall by his sleek, high-voltage performance. Also captivating are Matilda Ridgway as Sicinius and Brigid Zengeni as Volumnia, both actors impressive with their verve and intensity, able to hold our attention effortlessly even when we struggle to keep up with the archaic language.

Much as the voting public intends to choose the right representatives, the information on which those decisions are based rarely seems reliable. In the current climate of pessimism, it is all the more alarming that—even when candidates openly reveal their deficiencies—the body politic can still be persuaded to embrace them. More disappointing than being misled is to witness the celebration of a clear lack of virtue, when making decisions about our collective future. Evil exists, and it is rarely inadvertent.

www.bellshakespeare.com.au

Review: Primary Trust (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Jun 19 – Jul 12, 2025
Playwright: Eboni Booth
Director: Darren Yap
Cast: Charles Allen, Peter Kowitz, Angela Mahlatjie, Albert Mwangi
Images by Prudence Upton

Theatre review
Kenneth talks all day to his imaginary friend Bert, which is highly unusual for a man of 38. Primary Trust by Eboni Booth, is about the defence mechanisms and trauma responses, that a person develops after suffering a devastating incident. Mental health is unquestionably worthwhile as subject matter for any discussion, but its rendering on this occasion, involving a slightly simplistic narrative, has a tendency to feel somewhat surface.

This exploration of psychological deficiency is accomplished with dignity by director Darren Yap, who is also noteworthy for his deft hand at comedy that makes effective, the light humour of Booth’s writing. Characters in the play are wonderfully charming. Leading man Albert Mwangi brings appropriate innocence to Kenneth’s story of arrested development, along with a joviality that keeps us entirely on his side. Mwangi’s knack for naturalist authenticity sets the tone for the production, making everything believable and compelling.

Charles Allen embodies a glow of warmth in the fatherly role of Bert and is commendable for establishing a wonderful chemistry with Mwangi, ensuring that the central relationship always feels substantial. Angela Mahlatjie plays more than a few parts in Primary Trust, and is splendid in all of them. Her timing is immaculate, and her charisma, undeniable. Also memorable and very funny is Peter Kowitz, especially imaginative as the quirky bank manager Clay.

Music by Max Lambert and Roger Lock is a strong feature of the production, adding considerable verve to Kenneth’s emotional journey. Production design by James Browne offers simple solutions that help transport us to small town America, while Verity Hampson’s lights and Cameron Smith’s video projections attune us to tonal shifts that reflect the troubling psychological landscape being explored. 

The fantastical Bert can be seen partly as symptomatic of what has been termed an epidemic of loneliness. In the modern age, real connections have proven to be increasingly difficult. We resort to surrogates, rather than to fix problems, that we either fail to understand, or are incapable of surmounting. Imaginary friends, technological obsessions, substance abuse, and so on are just some of the ways in which we soothe our selves, in the absence of the wherewithal to make actual human connections. Isolation can often feel a solution, but the degradation of civility presently witnessed on all fronts, suggests that being in touch with each other’s humanity will always be necessary.

www.ensemble.com.au

Review: Cats (Theatre Royal)

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Venue: Theatre Royal (Sydney NSW), Jun 17 – Sep 6, 2025
Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics: T.S. Eliot, Trevor Nunn, Richard Stilgoe
Director: Trevor Nunn
Cast: Leigh Archer, Jarrod Draper, Des Flanagan, Lucy Maunder, Todd McKenney, Gabriyel Thomas, Mark Vincent
Images by Daniel Boud

Theatre review
It’s time again for a Jellicle Ball, but no prizes for guessing who gets chosen to ascend to the Heaviside Layer. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats is now into its 45th year, and it may seem that what was for a long time passé and even embarrassing, is now once again au courant. Early synth music arrangements, and lyrical jazz choreography had become indicators of bad taste for perhaps more than two decades, but trends have evolved to a state where Cats seems to have firmly established itself today, as a true classic of the genre.

Dancers in the current Sydney production give the work an amazing sense of elevation; their agility and athletic capacities take our collective breath away. Axel Alvarez as Mr Mistoffelees, Chaska Halliday as Cassandra, and Claudia Hastings as Victoria, impress with incredible physical discipline, along with the fascinating characterisations they bring to their various feline manifestations.

The truly iconic Grizabella is played by a mesmerising Gabriyel Thomas, who brings much-needed gravity to her rendition of “Memory”. Jarrod Draper’s regal handsomeness as Munkustrap has us charmed and captivated, while effortlessly conveying authority as de facto leader of the pack. Mark Vincent’s commanding voice makes Old Deuteronomy a persuasive patriarch, and Todd McKenney’s whimsical turn as Asparagus proves a delight.

A work like Cats can easily feel a relic, but on this occasion there is more than nostalgia that it delivers. Performers are often charged with the responsibility of breathing life into something old, and when they succeed, the wonder inspired can be even greater than ever before.

www.catsthemusical.com.au

Review: Koreaboo (Griffin Theatre Company)

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Venue: Belvoir St Theatre (Surry Hills NSW), Jun 14 – Jul 20, 2025
Playwright: Michelle Lim Davidson
Director: Jessica Arthur
Cast: Heather Jeong, Michelle Lim Davidson
Images by Brett Boardman

Theatre review
Hannah has flown to South Korea, hoping for a successful reunion with her birth mother. However, Soon Hee’s response falls far short of Hannah’s expectations. Koreaboo by Michelle Lim Davidson explores the phenomenon of transnational and transracial adoption, from the perspective of a person caught between cultures. Sharply observed and finely nuanced, Koreaboo proves to be as insightful as it is entertaining.

Davidson plays Hannah the naïve Australian, with exceptional effervescence. Heather Jeong brings admirable authenticity, to the role of shopkeeper Soon Hee. Both performers are wonderfully comedic, demonstrating excellent timing along with a persuasive chemistry. Directed by Jessica Arthur, the presentation is compulsively engaging at every moment, memorable for its sparkling humour. Scenes of poignancy could be provided more gravity, but they remain effective, in this story about unconventional kinship.

Production design by Mel Page accomplishes an extraordinary level of naturalism, to have us connecting immediately with visual cues that convey all we need to know, about these people and places. Lights by Kate Baldwin are commensurately accurate, in portraying a heightened ordinariness. Music by Brendon Boney offers a full-bodied expression of the playful spirit underpinning Koreaboo‘s humour, punctuating the show with gleeful joy throughout.

Parents are rarely, if ever, ideal beings. Admittedly some are more flawed than others, but a substantial part of any person’s maturation, involves coming to terms with disappointments around our parents’ deficiencies. Hannah longs for her mother’s love, but we discover that Soon Hee’s affections take a form quite different from what Hannah had hoped for. Like all adults, Hannah will learn eventually, that she simply has to make do.

www.griffintheatre.com.au

Review: The Half-Life Of Marie Curie (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Jun 13 – Jul 12, 2025
Playwright: Lauren Gunderson
Director: Liesel Badorrek
Cast: Rebecca Massey, Gabrielle Scawthorn
Images by Prudence Upton

Theatre review
It was 1911 when Marie Curie won her second Nobel Prize, but her monumental contribution to science was overshadowed by the public outcry over her scandalous relationship with a married man. In her agony, she takes refuge under the wing of fellow scholar Hertha Ayrton, who is determined to be a source of strength and inspiration. Lauren Gunderson’s The Half-Life of Marie Curie is a work that not only pays tribute to women trailblazers, but also highlights the importance of female friendship in a world that so often prefers to pit women against each other.

Vivaciously directed by Liesel Badorrek, the production is surprisingly comedic, despite the titular character’s unrelenting misery. Actor Gabrielle Scawthorn’s representations of Curie’s pain and suffering are almost unbearable in their believability, but the sublime Rebecca Massey is pure joy as Ayrton, offering a marvellous counterpoint to the dominant narrative of hardship.

Production design by James Browne is effective in taking us back to the appropriate time and space, whilst providing a charming theatricality to the experience. Lights by Verity Hampson take every opportunity to dial up the drama, while video projections by Cameron Smith deliver persuasive renderings of evanescent visions. Music by Daniel Hertern is at times beautifully transcendent, for a show that is as much about the past as it is about our future.

There are many forms of resistance, but the revolution will only endure, if the sisterhood remains unbreakable in its unity.

www.ensemble.com.au

Review: The Spare Room (Belvoir St Theatre)

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Venue: Belvoir St Theatre (Surry Hills NSW), Jun 7 – Jul 13, 2025
Playwright: Eamon Flack (from the novel by Helen Garner)
Director: Eamon Flack
Cast: Elizabeth Alexander, Judy Davis, Emma Diaz, Alan Dukes, Hannah Waterman
Images by Brett Boardman

Theatre review
Nicola is spending a few weeks in Melbourne, as she undergoes “alternative cancer treatment”. Helen has volunteered as carer through the ordeal, completely unconvinced by the bogus claims of the expensive but unsubstantiated therapies. Helen Garner’s 2008 novel The Spare Room deals with sickness and death, from the perspectives of those who are terminally ill, and those close to them.

Adapted by Eamon Flack, this theatrical version is thankfully humorous in tone, even if it does delve deep into difficult subject matter. What it discusses is certainly worthwhile, considering its universality, and its somewhat taboo nature only makes the experience more meaningful. The show is mostly an engaging one, even if performers seem consistently under-rehearsed. Judy Davis as Helen has a tendency for physical exaggeration, while Elizabeth Alexander as Nicola is overly trepidatious, but notwithstanding these imperfections, both are able to tell the story convincingly.

To address the practical requirements of the text, set design by Mel Page incorporates elements that are disparately homely and clinical, leaving the space to languish in an awkward intermediary, never really conveying any believable locale. Paul Jackson’s lights offer intricate atmospheric enhancements, as does music by Steve Francis, notable for being performed live by a very attentive Anthea Cottee on her trusty cello.

At her time of need, Nicola becomes hugely demanding of her friends and family. Her friends and family in turn discover, that there are no burdens more special than those of a loved one, in their final moments. 

www.belvoir.com.au

Review: Eureka Day (Seymour Centre)

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Venue: Seymour Centre (Chippendale NSW), May 29 – Jun 21, 2025
Playwright: Jonathan Spector
Director: Craig Baldwin
Cast: Deborah An, Christian Charisiou, Branden Christine, Jamie Oxenbould, Katrina Retallick
Images by Richard Farland

Theatre review
It is the 2018-19 school year, and a child comes to their Californian school with mumps, and sends everyone into a tailspin, when it is discovered that a substantial number of families have refused the MMR vaccine.

The comedy Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector emerged slightly before the pandemic, when it had become clear that conspiracy theories were more popular than ever, due to their unchecked proliferation on the internet. An unequivocally pertinent discussion for our times, Spector’s play encourages reflections on the phenomenon of parallel truths and fake news. It is thoughtful writing, and certainly worthwhile of attention, even if its generosity for those deceived and deluded, can often feel deeply frustrating.

Direction by Craig Baldwin makes use of that difficult conflict between ideological tribes, to create a stimulating work of theatre. Anger and exasperation might not be pleasurable emotions, but they are certainly powerful ones, that the production rouses for a communal experience that resonates with marvellous authenticity and familiarity.

An evenly dazzling cast of five delivers with urgent immediacy, a story that touches all in the modern age. Each actor is engaging, with palpable empathy and with sardonic humour, to earn our complete investment, if not for finding real solutions to the problem, then at least to simply commiserate about our sad state of affairs. Also noteworthy is production design by Kate Beere, offering simple yet colourful solutions that make believable, Eureka Day‘s explorations of a very upper middle class sanctuary.

A few short years since the original premiere of Eureka Day, we find ourselves in the preposterous position of fearing for the demise of science. Investigative, regulatory, and tertiary institutions in the USA are being systematically undermined, by a new kleptocracy determined to bankrupt any concept of the common good. Until very recently we have been able to “defer to science” in debates involving personal choice and public interest, but it seems that venerable authorities are being stripped of their credibility and efficacy, leaving us in an immensely troubling precarity.

www.seymourcentre.com | www.outhousetheatre.org

Review: Mary Jane (Old Fitz Theatre)

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Venue: Old Fitzroy Theatre (Woolloomooloo NSW), May 23 – Jun 15, 2025
Playwright: Amy Herzog
Director: Rachel Chant
Cast: Di Adams, Sophie Bloom, Isabel Burton, Eloise Snape, Janine Watson
Images by Phil Erbacher 

Theatre review
Mary Jane is about a single mother and her medically complex 2-year-old, trying to make things work in Queens, New York. It is a challenging life to say the least, and playwright Amy Herzog certainly goes to great pains, in a work of sobering realism, to ensure that we see how her central character barely survives the ongoing ordeal.

Although not entirely humourless, this staging of Herzog’s 2017 piece is intensely dour. Directed by Rachel Chant, the depiction of despondency for the mother and son in Mary Jane, is almost suffocating with its moroseness.  Leading lady Eloise Snape brings a valuable believability to the story, and is admirable for the unaffected naturalism she is able to maintain. Set design by Soham Apte too is focussed on delivering authenticity, leaving a remarkable impression with a scenic transformation that demonstrates considerable inventiveness.

Some art is more difficult than others. Mary Jane may not be an entertaining experience, but it does draw attention to issues that we routinely look away from. We can observe and try to think up solutions. We can ponder on how predicaments like this could be avoided. We can simply be present and witness something truthful, if only as a reminder that nobody has to be alone.

www.oldfitztheatre.com.au | www.mitodoproductions.com

Review: The Anarchy 1138-53 (KXT on Broadway)

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Venue: KXT on Broadway (Ultimo NSW), May 22-31, 2025
Creators: Pat Fielding, Chelsea Hickman, Kerith Manderson-Galvin, Tobias Manderson-Galvin, Dr Tom Payne
Cast: Kerith Manderson-Galvin, Tobias Manderson-Galvin
Images by Skye Gellmann

Theatre review
It is ostensibly a show about a civil war in 12th century England and Normandy. The very many words written for the verbose script of The Anarchy (1138-53), however, seem not to be of great importance in this telling of a story, that proves much more to be about the act of telling, than it is about the story itself. Kerith and Tobias Manderson-Galvin have prepared a great amount of copy, but their performance wants us almost to ignore their verbal regurgitations, and instead find alternative ways to pay attention, to a work of theatre determined to create unusual resonances.

Inevitable in this experience perhaps, are recollections of the Dadaist ethos, with its rejection of bourgeois aesthetics, its embrace of absurdity, and its simultaneous construction and deconstruction of artistic form. This can all be tiresome, academic and dry, but the Manderson-Galvins are so resolutely present as theatre-makers, that we find ourselves delighted and apprehensive, in equal measure, as they keep us riveted to their every bizarre manoeuvre. Theatre is ancient, but it can still communicate through new languages. For The Anarchy (1138-53), we keep finding different ways to ingest this abstract presentation, testing how our humanity can interact with stimuli of this nature. We explore the meaning of meaning, in a strange work like this, wondering where the phenomenon of understanding begins and ends.

When art is bewildering, it is rarely engaging. Thankfully, with its chaotic magnetism, The Anarchy (1138-53) proves itself to be curious but enjoyably so. Its charisma insists that we stay attentive, even if the payoff at every juncture, feels unfamiliar. When things are predictable and always the same, we stop questioning it. That which is uninterrogated holds power over us. Undoubtedly, it is comforting to encounter circumstances that feel natural, normal or ordinary, even if we know that nefarious elements will try to make themselves invisible and undetectable. So much of our ills is buried under the guise of blandness, which must be partly why James Baldwin declared, that “artists are here to disturb the peace.”

www.kingsxtheatre.com | www.doppelgangster.com

Review: Heaven (Qtopia)

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Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), May 14 – 31, 2025
Playwright: Eugene O’Brien
Director: Kate Gaul
Cast: Noel Hodda, Lucy Miller
Images by Alex Vaughan

Theatre review
Mairead and Mal are attending a wedding, but we see them spend all of their time apart, even though they are themselves a married couple. Heaven by Eugene O’Brien comprises two interweaving monologues, about people who are “fifty-plus” in age. It explores ideas of finality and potential, for those who have lived prescribed lives, exhausting all rules and expectations, only to find so much more that can be experienced.

A gently humorous work, directed by Kate Gaul with elegant conciseness, Heaven speaks with simplicity, about notions of personal fulfilment, especially for middle-aged individuals who tend to be characterised as being past their prime. Convincing performances by the cast inspire meditations on the meanings of freedom and selfhood.

Noel Hodda as Mal is compelling with his cheeky charm, and Lucy Miller’s effortless sass for the role of Mairead conveys the possibilities, of attaining something greater, if only one would allow themselves that liberty. Also noteworthy is Topaz Marlay-Cole, whose subtle lighting design provides appropriate enhancements at every atmospheric shift.

Central to the story are the character’s sexualities, and how Mairead and Mal are incompatible on that front. They take time apart to discover what it is that excites them, and therefore find versions of selves that are deeper and more authentic. Never for a moment in Heaven do wife and husband see or speak with each other. All of this happens at a wedding, which only serves to make us feel more than a little sceptical about that ancient tradition.

www.qtopiasydney.com.au | www.bitchenwolf.com