In a world that cannot deny the current pop-culture obsession surrounding comic book superhero film adaptations, Puzzle Collective’s Superhal – advertised as a “Superhero Origin Story” – seems like a slam-dunk take on Shakespeare’s Henry IV and V plays. Director John Galea describes it in the program notes as a “fully fledged archetypal origin story”,… Read more.
Twelfth Night is a glorious piece of revelry. When twins Viola and Sebastian are separated in a shipwreck, each thinks the other is dead. The story that unfolds has all of Shakespearean comedy classics: mistaken identity, a shipwreck, twins, cross-dressing, a wedding and lots of laughs. Viola loves Duke Orsino, who loves Countess Olivia, who loves Viola… Read more.
It has been 33 years since Queensland Theatre Company last produced Much Ado About Nothing, so it’s high time Brisbane had a professional production of Shakespeare’s masterful comedy. Spoiler alert: This review contains important plot points of the play, but frankly you’ve had over 400 years to read or to see it, so… read on,… Read more.
The tragedy Titus is the fictional account of Roman general Titus, returned from war to face a queen bent on revenge for the death of her son. As one of Shakespeare’s least performed works, it is a bold but exciting choice by the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble. It is a bloody tale of power, politics, family… Read more.
On Saturday night at their Holy Trinity Headquarters in Fortitude Valley, Heartbeast Theatre unveiled their latest offering, King Lear; the well-known tale of the titular King that generally runs amok and drives himself into madness when he falls foul of his own master scheme. Taking an Australian Gothic slant on the play (think Hanging Rock), director… Read more.
One late summer evening in the dimmed, pooling light of La Boite’s Roundhouse Theatre, a brave Ben Schostakowski (director) polishes up the most performed and endeared of Shakespeare plays and gloriously messes around with it. With flagrant disregard for traditionalists and dullards, he picks up the Athenian lovers and mischievous fairies of A Midsummer Night’s… Read more.
Have you seen every show that comes to town, and then some? Have you read all of Shakespeare’s plays (and do you keep them in a handy app on your iphone for quick reference)? Are you a walking music theatre encyclopaedia? Take our quiz below and see how you score!
I saw Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree at the 2008 Melbourne Festival. It assured me that I’d see anything he created and I Malvolio has confirmed my commitment. Crouch is from Brighton in the UK and he makes theatre that embraces and confronts the assumptions that audiences and performers take into a theatre. This is the fourth work he’s created in… Read more.
I, Malvolio, hate you. Look at you. Sitting there with your bellies full of pop and pickled herring. Laughing at me. Go on. Laugh at the funny man. Laugh. Make the funny man cry… Part Monty Python and part Black Adder, I, Malvolio is the fourth in a series of plays by Tim Crouch which takes… Read more.
AussieTheatre is thrilled to be giving away a double pass to Bell Shakespeare’s production of The Dream at Arts Centre Melbourne. The clue is in the title – this is a different dream. Director Peter Evans has reawakened Shakespeare’s classic A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a breathless 90-minute production that amplifies the magic, mirth and mayhem. Love is in the air… Read more.
