MILO PENNEFATHER AND JULIAN MACHIN ON THEIR PROBLEMATIC NEW PRODUCTION Cancelled, Four Letter Word Theatre’s brazen new production, pulls none of its punches. The musical stars one Max Richmond, an arrogant lead singer whose disastrously insensitive remarks have spelled the collapse of his musical career. With the help of THEM, a down-and-out pop icon, Max hatches a plan to get back on top and win … Continue reading A Candid Look at ‘Cancelled’ Culture
Reviewed by: Oscar Lidgerwood “My love for you was greater than my wisdom” To love is to hurt. It’s to break, and to heal. To love is knowing when it’s time to go. Through a striking blend of theatricality and a humane vulnerability, LOVEMACHINE finds a beautiful intimacy beneath the complexities of contemporary relationships, underpinning the timelessness of theatre. LOVEMACHINE delivers a nuanced mix of classic with a … Continue reading LOVEMACHINE: A Striking Presentation of Modern Love
Reviewed by: Molly Lidgerwood Editor: Sophia Zikic Louise Siversen and Peter Houghton’s time travel comedy Underneath Ms Archer intersects the complexities of the twenty-first century with the brutality of the Middle Ages, ultimately providing a hysterical, riotous, and dynamic 95-minute spectacle that is not to be missed. Set in contemporary London, the play depicts the consequences of Kelly Archer’s (Louise Siversen) controversial decision, as a … Continue reading The Historical Hilarity of “Underneath Ms Archer”
Reviewed by: Oscar Hales Editor: Sophia Zikic As an aspiring historian, I know too well the painful phenomenon of treating historical homosexual couples as “very good friends.” Given their ashes were mixed together so they could be together in death, it seems downright insane to treat Patroclus and Achilles as “roommates”. Yet this is just what Shakespeare did, not even mentioning it in Troilus and Cressida, his telling … Continue reading “Emotional, Gripping, and Cathartic”: MUSC’s Patroclus and Achilles
Describing themselves as “the Kindergarten of Australian Comedy”, the Law Revue is an institution with impressive credentials. Alumni of previous shows include Magda Szubanski, Libbi Gorr, Shaun Micaleff, Tom Gleisner, Sammy J, Celia Pacquola and Steve Vizard, as well as Cate Blanchett. Continue reading Laugh Actually: The 69th Annual Law Revue
While this self-indulgence means that JAFFY’s audience is perhaps more niche than many of the original works that hit the UniMelb stage, it’s not a bad thing by any stretch. The self-indulgence is endearing. It’s cute. Continue reading JAFFY: A Touching Reminder to Touch On
Union House Theatre’s 2018 production Ida follows the story of the first female students at the University of Melbourne. Earlier this week, I spoke with cast members Lucy Seale and Emily White to hear about the show and their experience with the production. So just tell me about Ida E: So, it’s a remount of a 1994 musical that was done here in 1994 L: In the … Continue reading ‘Ida’: Interview with Lucy Seale and Emily White
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is arguably his most frequently performed play, with Hamlet himself known as one of theatre’s most iconic leading men. The original text has been interpreted and reinterpreted throughout theatrical history, with big names, gender swaps and re-contextualisations providing fresh takes on the play. The most subversive and widely respected of these interpretations is Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine. This 1977 play originally ran for seven … Continue reading Ophelia/Machine: Hamlet Who?
A trio of unlikely adventurers. A quest to save all humanity from a terrible fate. It may sound familiar, but I bet you haven’t seen it done quite like Mudcrabs do it in their first long-form narrative work, Mindquest: Journey into Forever. The show centres around Eva (Liv Bell) and Gil (Shane Woods), two Brunswick locals pulled into a quest to save the universe from … Continue reading Mindquest: Saving The Universe, One Hipster at a Time
Clocking in at just an hour, Liz Newell’s play, Alone Outside crafts a delicate portrait that moves too slowly and ambles too indulgently to be fully appreciated. Taking a narratorial approach to ever-shifting family dynamics and growing up rural, Newell taps into universal experiences of love, loss and compassion. It is unfortunate to see such interesting themes and topics collapse beneath a logy execution. Further, the … Continue reading Alone Outside: A Burdensome Picture of Living Rural
The Dialog 