AUDITORIUM

The Hand That Rocked the Cradle

The Hand That Rocked the Cradle

✮✮✮✮ Daniel Keene's Mother Belvoir St Theatre | Sydney directed by Matt Scholten Christie’s misfortune is deeper than any we have ever encountered. Having lost everything, she is on the streets with only memories of trauma, to while the days away, like a waking recurring nightmare. Daniel Keene’s Mother is about the hardest life a person can bear, a shocking Greek tragedy made real and salient for our times. It goes beyond an examination of mental health deterioration, to cre

The Incredible Resilience of Tradition

The Incredible Resilience of Tradition

✮✮✮ 1/2 Jason Klarwein, Jimi & Dimple Bani's My Name is Jimi Belvoir St Theatre | Sydney directed by Jason Klarwein Jimi Bani hails from Mabuiag Island, in the near Western part of Torres Strait. His show My Name Is Jimi, is about culture and tradition, and the resolve to keep the uniqueness of his Wagadagam tribe alive and thriving in the modern age. True to form, the production features performers from his own family, across four generations, illustrating the essence and th

Mother Complex and That Sinking Feeling

Mother Complex and That Sinking Feeling

✮✮ 1/2 Lally Katz's Atlantis Belvoir St Theatre | Sydney directed by Rosemary Myers Lally Katz’s new play Atlantis is an autobiographical fantasy. It sprouts from something personal and authentic, then leads to something entirely imaginary. Lally, the protagonist, is consumed by anxiety. At 35, she finds herself single and childless. We follow her on an odyssey that takes her from Sydney to the East Coast of the USA; an eventful, wacky journey that comprises a string of amusi

Don't Wake the Dead

Don't Wake the Dead

✮✮✮ 1/2 Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts Belvoir St Theatre | Sydney directed by Eamon Flack It is late 19th century, and the widowed Mrs Alving is building an orphanage so that her dead husband’s money can be released from her conscience. She is still unable to find peace, even though her poisonous marriage is now over, after having suffered in silence for decades. Ibsen’s Ghosts is about the incontrovertible links between past and present. It looks at how we are controlled by beliefs,

Hir Project of Queering Everything

Hir Project of Queering Everything

✮✮✮✮ 1/2 Taylor Mac's Hir Belvoir St Theatre | Sydney directed by Anthea Williams Paige is suddenly emancipated. By a stroke of luck, her abusive husband Arnold has turned invalid, revealing a fortuitous way out of misery. She revels in her new freedom with a maniacal glee, and together with her now transgender son Max, their household is transformed to radically embrace every concept of anti-patriarchy that they come across. Taylor Mac’s Hir is a revenge story, centring on a

Immortal Comedy if the English Tourists

Immortal Comedy if the English Tourists

✮✮✮ Aphra Behn's The Rover Belvoir St Theatre | Sydney directed by Eamon Flack It is mid 17th century, and a bunch of rowdy English tourists descend upon Naples to partake in the masqueraded festivities of Carnival time. Aphra Behn’s depiction of wild revelry may be restricted by mores of the Restoration era, but its spiritedness is nonetheless unmistakable. In its atmosphere of debauchery, the characters talk of love and marriage, preoccupied with the sport of spouse hunting

It's the End of the World, And It's No Joke

It's the End of the World, And It's No Joke

✮✮✮ Anne Washburn's Mr Burns Belvoir St Theatre | Sydney directed by Imara Savage There are three distinct acts in Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play. First, we discover that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket; it is the apocalypse, and we have run out of electricity. A small group of survivors huddle together, trying to keep themselves sane by retelling episodes of The Simpsons. They each contribute fragments, but memory, like all human ability, proves to be considerably

Bitches & Pussies

Bitches & Pussies

✮✮✮ 1/2 Brendan Cowell/Lally Katz's The Dog / The Cat Belvoir St Theatre | Sydney directed by Ralph Myers We like to subscribe to the notion that there are cat people, and in a separate category there are dog people. This either/or dynamic could easily be applied to this double bill. Brendan Cowell’s The Dog and Lally Katz’s The Cat are both contemporary Australian comedies, but there is little in their respective senses of humour that unites them. Not to say that one is funn

This Woman's Work

This Woman's Work

✮✮✮ Tommy Murphy's Mark Colvin's Kidney Belvoir St Theatre | Sydney directed by David Berthold We want many ideas and themes running through our plays, so they may be experienced with complexity and a sense of surprise. In Mark Colvin’s Kidney, a new play by Tommy Murphy, we think about friendship, altruism, wealth, technology, and the Leveson “phone-hacking” inquiry, divergent concepts that the writer consolidates with the help of a true event. It is a tricky undertaking,

Nothing to See Here

Nothing to See Here

✮✮✮ Brian Friel's Faith Healer Belvoir St Theatre | Sydney directed by Judy Davis Frank makes his living as a faith healer, travelling all over Britain with a performance that showcases his charismatic arrogance, and sometimes actually miraculously healing people in the process. There are serious troubles in private however, but none of his energy is put into finding a cure for the suffering at home. Brian Friel’s play is meandering and often obscure, with its Rashomon style

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