Review of May 9 performance by Elise Lawrence. A ten-minute performance art piece in the Mappin’s Nursery Share House, Meat Mirror used video projections and physical theatre to blur the lines between beauty and horror. A collaboration between Jay Younger and Lisa O’Neill, Meat Mirror is a condemnation of social media and the normalisation of cosmetic surgery to achieve... Continue Reading →
Review: SHELTER (The Drawer Productions)
Review of May 9 performance. The Drawer Productions placed the audience at the heart of an unravelling family mystery with their unsettling immersive theatre piece SHELTER. I saw SHELTER on Mother’s Day and it turned out to be an appropriate choice with its focus on mother-daughter relationships and themes of legacy, intergenerational trauma, history’s tendency... Continue Reading →
Review: Hog Wild (Taylor Edwards)
Review of May 8 performance. An evening of offbeat stand-up and committed character comedy with a local flavour. Taylor Edwards’ debut solo show is full of funny family tales, self-deprecating humour, and wild characters. Those who saw her perform Everyone’s Leaving Brisbane with Rosa Sottile at Anywhere Festival 2019 will recognise a couple of sketches, especially Brisbane-centric... Continue Reading →
Review: Intoxication (Before Shot)
Review of May 8 performance. A powerfully personal performance exploring intimacy and connectedness in the digital age. Christopher Bryant demonstrated his mastery of storytelling in this highly polished and deeply personal show. Intoxication is a sharp examination of fear and loneliness in a world where we are constantly connected, constantly performing our identity for known and unknown... Continue Reading →
Review: This Little World (The Giddy Round Theatre)
Review of May 8 performance. Owen Corey delivered an impressive and moving performance as King Richard II, direct from the USA to your device. The Giddy Round Theatre presented a condensed production of Shakespeare’s Richard II as a polished one-man show, streamed live on YouTube from their converted rowhouse in West Philadelphia. Speaking from his prison cell... Continue Reading →
Review: Mental Illness Is Not A Crime (Claire Fitzpatrick)
Review of May 7 performance. Claire Fitzpatrick facilitated a calming space for sensory exploration with her interactive experience Mental Illness Is Not A Crime. Mental Illness Is Not A Crime was not a performance in a traditional sense but more of a workshop or an interactive space focused on ASMR. Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a... Continue Reading →
Review: Good Talk (Moontan Productions)
Review of May 7 performance. A fast-moving two-hander, Good Talk examined the comfortable rhythms and routines of a long-term relationship and the ways that we communicate in silences as well as words. High school sweethearts Jiā lǐ and Erin have returned to their hometown for their ten-year reunion. Alone with each other in their AirBnB as a... Continue Reading →
Review: Pictures at an Exhibition: Musical Vignettes (Queensland Symphony Orchestra)
Queensland Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Northey. Photographed by Peter Wallis. Queensland Symphony Orchestra transported its audience from concert hall to art gallery with Pictures at an Exhibition: Musical Vignettes, conducted by Benjamin Northey. In addition to the titular work by Modest Mussorgsky, the Maestro concert also included Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Overture from May Night and... Continue Reading →
Review: Come From Away (Newtheatricals & Junkyard Dog Productions)
Original Australian company, photographed by Jeff Busby Tony and Olivier award-winning musical Come From Away has opened in Brisbane, bringing the packed Lyric Theatre to its feet for a spirited standing ovation. Come From Away is an upbeat and uplifting musical that reminds us of the best bits of our humanity. Directed by Christopher Ashley and choreographed... Continue Reading →
Review: Bigger & Blacker (La Boite Theatre, Sydney Opera House & W Lance Reynolds)
Photography by Morgan Roberts Steven Oliver’s whirlwind cabaret Bigger & Blacker is sexy, irreverent, and hysterical, as expected, but also deeply personal and moving as he sings about love, loss, and life. Photography by Morgan Roberts Steven Oliver cements himself further as a man of a million talents with this world premiere, a cabaret show... Continue Reading →
Review: Lorelei (Opera Queensland)
Image credit: Jade Ferguson @visualpoetssociety. Provided by Opera Queensland. Content and trigger warning: This production contains strong coarse language and adult themes. After being postponed for a year due to COVID-19, Lorelei has finally made it to the QPAC Concert Hall and it is a witty, provocative, political work of operatic cabaret that turns a... Continue Reading →
Review: The Revolutionists (The Curators’ Theatre)
Lauren Roche as Charlotte Corday in The Revolutionists. Images: NAZ MULLA. Content and trigger warning: This production contains coarse language, and spoken references to historical violence. The Curators’ Theatre have opened their 2021 season with the Australian premiere of The Revolutionists by American playwright Lauren Gunderson. Directed and designed by Michael Beh, this metatheatrical dramatic... Continue Reading →