Reviewed by Joyce Chau
We may be losing our social conscience and our sense of social justice. We may no longer care about anything other than wealth and consumption. They’re hardly the most shocking accusations found in the Sydney theatre scene. Nor are they usually particularly subtly put. Yet King Tide by Katherine Thomson stands out for its eloquence. Read the rest of this entry ?
Reviewed by Joyce Chau
Norm and Ahmed is a simple play with a vicious core. Written close to forty years ago, it examines white Australia through a chance encounter between the aptly named Norm and Ahmed, a Pakistani student. Read the rest of this entry ?
Reviewed by Nicole Bassil
When I read that the play I was about to see was going to celebrate a talentless1950s opera singer, I had my doubts. I entered the theatre with low expectations and steeled myself for a supposedly humorous auditory onslaught. However, Peter Quilter’s Glorious was a huge surprise in that it was actually hilarious rather than tragic. The play is deliberately set in the style of a 1950s comedy, think Arsenic and Old Lace (one of my absolute favourites), but it is charmingly cheesy rather than cringe-worthy and I think it has great appeal for audiences of all ages. Read the rest of this entry ?
Reviewed by Vivien Fung
“Despair is the last vestige of the ego,” she said significantly. Then, lightly, “.. I got that from the Reader’s Digest!” In these two sentences, the charm in The Memory of Water is revealed. As a play which draws out three sisters’ memories of their mother in the aftermath of her death – good and bad, competing and harmonious – it nevertheless remains light-hearted thanks to a foundation of glib banter and wonderfully caustic one-liners. Read the rest of this entry ?
Reviewed by Joyce Chau
I find opera reviews notoriously difficult to write, particularly as most mainstream productions are part of an established canon of works. I have opinions but I’m definitely not an opera expert. Nearly all of the performances I have been to over the last few years have been first forays into certain operas. Read the rest of this entry ?
Reviewed by A Filmer
Two independent productions are currently sharing the stage at the Darlinghurst Theatre, both showcasing the fluid physicality and versatility of their respective performers. Read the rest of this entry ?
Reviewed by Joyce Chau
The controversy purportedly associated with Philip Ridley’s Mercury Fur is largely unnecessary. Or perhaps theatre types can’t cope with the play’s violent, bleak, post-apocalyptic aesthetic commonly found in sci-fi or zombie flicks. Ultimately, however, once the end-of-world debris is cleared away Mercury Fur is a fairly effective if typical exploration of humanity. Read the rest of this entry ?
Reviewed by Nicole Bassil
I am a huge fan of Gilbert and Sullivan and The Gondoliers is right up there for me with The Mikado and Pirates of Penzance. All are delightfully funny with perverse predictability to the point of dramatic irony. Read the rest of this entry ?
