Good children’s stories usually have deeper meaning beneath the surface. Often our favourite childhood tales contain messages for bigger issues. The Harry Potter series is about learning to cope with death. The Lorax teaches kids about climate change and the environment. Roald Dahl’s catalogue nstruct on the importance of kindness, education and believing in yourself…. Read more.
Wind is attempting to commit suicide with a plastic bag over his head. It’s a shock laced with black humour; he’s tried this before, he tells us wryly. He even details the process at which the a person begins to suffocate – “I would know,” he says. This is Huff, a solo show by Cliff… Read more.
In 1969, National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre became lost in the depths of Brazil’s remote Javari Valley and found himself living amongst the Mayoruna people, a tribe with little to no contact with the outside world. He believed that he discovered the source of the Amazon River by speaking telepathically with the tribespeople. Based on… Read more.
For some, seeing Shakespeare in English is complicated enough. For the crowd that packed into the Roslyn Packer theatre on Sunday night to see Cheek by Jowl and Moscow’s Pushkin Theatre perform Measure for Measure, there was a unique challenge: Shakespeare performed in Russian, with English surtitles. Although Russian Shakespeare may seem inaccessible, the sexual… Read more.
Every minute of Prize Fighter, the acclaimed playwrighting debut by Future D. Fidel, is essential. At only 65 minutes in length the play, now at Belvoir after a strong season at Brisbane Festival, is a fight for life. Isa (Pacharo Mzembe), a refugee newly settled in Australia, is a boxer training for a national title… Read more.
Ladies in Black means well. A new Australian musical based on Madeleine St John’s novel Women in Black, it carries in its quintessentially Australian core an eagerness to charm audiences. Just like young protagonist Lisa Miles longs to grow up, defy boundaries, and find her identity in mid 20th century Australia, so too is this musical trying… Read more.
Marrugeku’s Cut the Sky is an inventive mélange of dance, song, and poetry fuelled by pain and anger. It’s a lens through which to view climate change and to reflect upon society’s treatment of the planet. Broome based dance company Marrugeku cross beyond disciplinary boundaries to create innovative intercultural dance theatre with a strong Indigenous… Read more.
In Between Two invites us into the lives and stories of Joel Ma (aka Joelistics) and James Mangohig: both born of mixed race marriages, both with Asian fathers, and both grew up into rebellious teenagers who eventually found solace in rap music. This is an enjoyable and easy evening; sitting back and hearing two friends… Read more.
The Rabbits, a new operatic adaptation of Shaun Tan and John Marsden’s picture book composed by Kate Miller-Heidke and libretto by Lally Katz, is a beautiful-looking piece of art. In the Roslyn Packer theatre, Gabriela Tylesova’s set evokes an elegant outback, and her costumes create striking marsupials with vulnerable curves, and steampunk-inspired invading Rabbits. In this… Read more.
Alan Cumming has the ineffable quality of a star. There’s that flashing smile, sliding from cheeky to rueful within seconds. There’s the twinkled eyes, the hair, the pixie-ish demeanour. He’s magnetic and it burns somewhere from the inside; somewhere one can’t quite place but will readily believe in. At 11:45pm on a Friday night in… Read more.
