By Tom Wells. New Theatre, Newtown (NSW). Feb 7 – Mar 4, 2023.

Reviewed : February 12, 2023

What a combination! Tom Wells, Alice Livingstone and a talented cast! Put them together on a Tom Bannerman-designed set redolent of the small, smelly dressing rooms hidden under the old grandstand of every suburban oval and you have a fine production of a very skilfully written play.  In fact, Jumpers for Goalposts is a very fitting salute to New Theatre’s 29 years of theatre-based support of Mardi Gras and everything it entails.

The play is about … well … a local football team meeting in that grotty change room after their Sunday matches, but it’s far more than that, as Livingstone explains beautifully in her program notes:

“Jumpers for Goalposts is much more than just a story about a pretty hopeless bunch of soccer players getting together over six Sundays to kick a ball around. It celebrates the special friendships that can exist between gay men and lesbians, it explores how the public expectation of how masculinity is displayed can often mask vulnerability and longing, and it shows how five ordinary people, male and female, gay and straight, find camaraderie, fulfilment and love in each other’s company. The true meaning of community lies at the heart of this play.”

Tom Wells is a clever writer. The characters he creates are very real and become even more real and lovable with each scene – in this case, after each Sunday’s match! They aren’t good players – in fact one of them has never played before, but their player/coach Viv, is desperate for them to do better than the lesbian team for which she used to play.

Livingstone has skilfully and gently guided the cast through the revelations that are made in each successive scene, allowing them to find the frailties and strengths that Wells has inferred in the dialogue. Hesitance, pause, unfinished sentences and silences tell more in this play than the words themselves. And this cast knows just how to use them – and the humour that Wells has built into every scene. That – and the way the characters develop – makes this play very special.

It is Viv who drives the team to keep going. She and her wife run the local pub, and Viv would really like to have the trophy – that she has donated! – behind the bar. Emma Louise plays Viv with assertive verve, making her pushy, vibrant, energetic and totally engaging. Louise realises the scope of the role, how each scene shows yet another facet of Viv’s passion – and compassion.

Nick Curnow plays Joe –‘the only straight’ in the team – and Curnow finds every possible huff, puff and twinge that Joe’s out-of-conditioned body experiences each Sunday. Despite his pain, Joe is determined not to let Viv down – nor to let her be too hard on the rest of the team. He is gentle, supportive – and understanding – the sort of ‘straight’ that the world needs to see more often.

Isaac Broadbent is Danny, young, open and keen to develop a relationship with Luke (Sam Martin) who works at the local library. He is quietly delighted when Luke joins the team following a notice advertising for players that Sam has surreptitiously posted on the library notice board. The relationship that Wells builds for these two young men is touching – and Livingstone has allowed it to develop so that it seems natural and endearing. Broadbent makes Danny eager but, for reasons of his own, just a little reticent. Martin matches that reticence with cautious timidity and tentative self-doubt. Together they bring Danny and Luke into a gentle, sweet relationship that is beautiful to watch.

Beardy Geoff is played with mischievous effervescence by Jared Stephenson. Stephenson is tall, and sporting a Costa Georgiadis-style beard and long, curly hair, he makes Beardy Geoff gangly and just a little over-the-top as he spurs the others to make the most of the fun they could have together. His Geoff is funny, aware, empathetic, loved as much by the audience as he is by his teammates.

New Theatre scores lots of goals with this gentle, compassionate play. In their dingy little changeroom the characters reach through social barriers to show that life should be good, can be good – and is full of stories that, as Tom Wells says are “worth hearing, full of spirit and mischief.”

Congratulations Alice Livingstone. Your team is on a winner to get that trophy.

See another reviewers’ comments on this play at Stage Whispers magazine

Gravity and Other Myths. Director Darcy Grant. Drama Theatre Sydney Opera House. 11 Feb – 9 March, 2023

Reviewed : February 11, 2023*

Gravity and Other Myths (GOM) is the Adelaide based acrobatic contemporary circus troupe that is stunning the world with its creative performances. In the words of director, performer, photographer and Helpmann Award winner Darcy Grant, the company entertains “through the language of contemporary circus”. Surely a massive understatement, because Gravity of Myths does much more. Founded in 2007, it has taken its shows around the world, winning fourteen international awards, including three inaugural International Circus Awards in 2021.

The Mirror, its latest production, comes fresh from performances in Germany where it was described in the Berliner Morgenpost as “contemporary circus in its purest form”. If “contemporary circus” means a combination of acrobatics, dance, music, lighting and visual art – then The Mirror has all of that in a performance that is breathtaking not only for its flips and flying feats, but for the sheer theatricality of its staging.

Described by the company as “both a nod to the extremes that people will go to please others and a reflection on the hidden parts of ourselves that make us unique”, The Mirror combines the wonder of an amazing combination of acrobatics and dance with a humorous musical narrative that weaves around and through the production. The performers, as well as incredibly strong, athletic and imaginative gymnasts and dancers, are acutely aware of the theatrical potential of technology. In this production, under the direction of Darcy Grant, they have developed a performance that acknowledges that potential as well as ‘mirroring’ how it has influenced contemporary society.

Using an LED wall, fluorescent tubes, film, cameras and selfie sticks, and the voice and imagination of composer, singer and dancer Ekrem Eli Phoenix, the ensemble –  Martin Schreiber, Simon McClure, Lisa Goldsworthy, Lewis Rankin, Dylan Phillips, Emily Gare, Jascha Boyce, Lachlan Binns and Maya Tregonning – present a continuing, contiguous series of images that appear from behind moving curtains or are reflected  in or projected on a mirror-like screen.

Some images are static, pyramids of five or seven bodies that have miraculously formed in a few seconds behind a moving curtain. Others involve bodies being walked on, up and over, being thrown, flipped and caught in a whirlwind of movements that involve all nine supple, highly trained and highly aware athletes. Trust is intrinsic in this art form. Trust in the anchor holding three, four or five bodies; trust in being thrown to land on that tower of bodies, or from one performer to another. Trust in oneself to twist and turn in a series of gymnastic contortions that stretch the body beyond imagination.

All are achieved in a series of vignettes, some that establish the talent and athleticism of the company, others that play into Eli Phoenix’s “Pop mash-ups” (his words) of songs and grabs of lyrics. All feed into the humour that begins with his initial entrance in white singlet, y-fronts and an open bath robe and continues with segments such as a love scene where two performers are deftly manipulated by other ensemble members to ‘see’ each other, flirt a little, come together in a kiss – and stay “kissed” together as they are raised, lowered, twisted and turned in the suggestion of a torrid love scene. It is an ingenious piece of theatre performed with perfect timing – both acrobatically and theatrically.

The humour in segments like this is carefully and skilfully developed, using the acting skills of the performers as well as their acrobatic prowess. Contemporary audiences are demanding, attuned as they are to multi-disciplined media events, and GOM meets that demand adeptly, whether it be through the amazing athleticism of Dylan Phillips, who pushes his body to remarkable feats and shapes and paces. Or the comedic timing of Simon McClure and his cheeky, expressive eyes. Or the strength of Maya Tregonning when she is the trusted anchor.

Every member of this company, including its directors and designers can boast a wealth of training and experience in multiple areas of the arts. Most of the performers began with very early classes in dance or ballet or gymnastics, progressed to the many circus academies or university courses here in Australia, then worked companies such as Cirque du Soleil and Circa. This experience is constantly enhanced by trying new feats, developing new skills – and collaborating on ideas for new and exciting projects. All of this is “mirrored” in this exciting, intriguing piece of theatrical acrobatic artistry.

It is no wonder this relatively young company has achieved such international recognition – and this latest example of their clever, complex, multi-faceted work is here for another month. Do see it!

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening night

By Jordan Ross, Lindsey Rosin and Roger Kumble/ David Venn Enterprises. Director Alister Smith. Riverside Theatre Parramatta. 3 – 12 Feb, 2023

Reviewed : February 3, 2023*

David Venn Enterprises (DVE) is busy “creating first class live experiences for audiences around the world”.

·      Their production of Elvis: A Musical Revolution will tour Australia in 2023.

·      Their production of The Wedding Singer is currently touring Australia.

·      And their reprise tour of Cruel Intentions – the 90’s Musical opened to a very hyped, hip audience last night at Parramatta.

Blasting from high behind James Browne’s tall, mobile set and Declan O’Neill’s fluorescent lighting, musical director Daniel Puckey whips his band through a play list of classic 90s hits including “Bittersweet Symphony”, “Every You and Every Me”, “Bye Bye Bye”, “Sometimes”, “Just A Girl”, “Breakfast At Tiffany’s”, “I’ll Make Love To You” and of course “Kiss Me”.

It’s loud, brash and reverberating – and the audience love it! The energy is high and exhilarating, and except for a few ‘dramatic’ moments, director Alister Smith and choreographer Freya List have set the pace for the production at ‘extra fast’. Because, given the very tenuous plot, based somewhat injudiciously on Christopher Hampton’s play Dangerous Liaisons, music, movement and using sex as a weapon is what this show is all about.

Don’t get me wrong, Smith has guaranteed his cast do a very entertaining ‘tongue-in-cheek’ job with the almost comic-book-bubble dialogue between songs, making the most of every opportunity to push the bold comedy and the risqué camp cheekiness. This is not a production recommended for teenagers – even though they’d love it, especially those who study song and dance. And the characters are supposed to be teenagers after all!

Despite that fact, few teenagers would have the expertise – or energy – to match the very talented cast that Venn Productions has attracted. Or to undergo the rigours of a national tour.

The cast brings to Cruel Intentions a range of experience from a host of musical theatre productions. It includes Kirby Burgess, playing the wily, provocative, red-wigged Kathryn, belting out her songs confidently, her dance moves dexterously and her devious character seductively.

And Drew Weston, who drops a few years to play her libidinous step-brother Sebastion! Though he isn’t quite believable as a teenager, Weston certainly plays the debaucher well, including a brief strip – and a cleverly blocked love scene. Oh, and he sings and dances too! Versatile – and hunky – Weston is relishing the opportunity to play a young, sexy ‘anti-hero’ in a quest to win over a very virtuous heroine.

Kelsey Halge plays Annette, the object of Sebastian’s quest – and his eventual kismet. Halge plays the naïve, ingenue well, her blonde, bobbed wig shining as brightly as her virtuous innocence.

A different sort of innocence is played out by Sarah Krndija as Cecile. Krndija does the awkward, gawky teenage thing very comically, defiantly but cleverly overacting – and in so doing winning the heart of the audience – and her cello teacher, Ronald, played with nice restraint by Rishab Kern, especially in a racist confrontation with Cecile’s mother, depicted delightfully by Fern Belling.

The very gay and daringly spicy Blaine is a gift of a role for Ross Chisari, who makes the most of every vocal and physical nuance as he tempts his closeted football hero Greg (Joseph Spanti) with Freya List’s brilliant choreography to boy band number “Bye, Bye, Bye”.

Both join the ensemble of dancers in some very tricky and complex routines, their school uniform costumes cunningly designed by Isaac Lummis to allow for some slick moves and ‘dangerous liaisons’ with movable sets and descents from high ladders.

If the range of generations represented in the audience on opening night is any indication, the music – and the memory of the movie – certainly means this production has a wide appeal. And even if you didn’t see the movie or know the music particularly well, the production is worth seeing anyway! Because it’s slick, sexy, suggestive, sassy – and very cleverly directed and performed.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening night

By Sabrina Mahfouz. Virginia Plain with KXT bAKEHOUSE. Director Victor Kalka. KXT Kings Cross Hotel. 25 Jan- 4 Feb, 2023

Reviewed : February 28, 2023 *

In a very tight, very concentrated production, Alice Birbara reprises her 2022 performance of this searing, yet lyrical play by British-Egyptian poet and playwright Sabrina Mahfouz. The character Birbara plays is a convicted criminal in a women’s prison. Once a haute-cuisine chef, she has earned the privilege of running the prison kitchen. And that’s where we meet her – where she tells her story interspersed with graphic descriptions of the dishes she used to create.

Sabrina Mahfouz has crafted her play as carefully as an epic poem. The language of it is rhythmic, lyrical – whether it be the mouth-watering, detailed descriptions of the dishes Chef remembers creating or the harsh, distressing stories of the events that led to her incarceration. Yet it is also confronting, because so many of her memories are underscored by violence, unassuaged anger … and grief.

Director Victor Kalka ensures that Birbara carries the burden Mahfouz has created for this Chef very carefully. With superb control, like a tightly coiled spring, Birbara moves from almost eloquent descriptions of a perfect peach or the red juice of rhubarb, to bleak memories of her past or graphic images of a more recent, bloody event. Every movement is exactly timed, every gesture relevant and related. There is no room to breathe in her prison except for stolen moments when she writes up snippets of her menus in her stark, white kitchen.

Kalka has also ensured that his set uses the transverse stage of the theatre to its best effect. White tiles line the floor and two walls. The only props a stainless-steel trolley, a plate, a peach and a whiteboard. Symbolic fluorescent bars flare harshly on the only window.

Encased thus, Birbara faces her audience resolutely, fixing them with dark, expressive eyes, confining them with her in this austere space, where she paces at times, sinks slowly to floor at others, or stands perfectly still as she describes a poignant memory … “seagulls glide out of stalactite clouds”. There are many sides to this character, all of them told in deftly chosen words and phrases that confine its performer in a variety of different walls …

I cook here, create here,
make here be as much of life as I can
because outside of this
I’m not safe,
I don’t know the way.

This is a hard gig, both emotionally and physically demanding, but Alice Birbara is lithe, athletic, energetic, all of which she consolidates into the restrictions and restraints that drive this character … whilst still sensitively honouring the poetic rhythm and sophisticated structure of Mahfouz’s writing. It is a powerful performance.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening night

By Thomas Weatherall. Director: Deborah Brown. Belvoir St Theatre Upstairs. 14-29 January, 2023

Reviewed : January 19, 2023*

When Thomas Weatherall’s agent advised him to “just start writing, Tom” she probably realised much more vividly than Tom himself just how clearly he would be able to translate his thoughts and feelings into words – and just how vividly he would be able to articulate them on the stage. Deborah Brown saw this on her first reading of that writing that has become Blue.

“Here was a writer that struck a chord with me, deep inside. Blue resonated not only as a script but also as a piece of music. It evoked the dancer in me and from that I knew I wanted a team that could ground themselves in the poetry on the page but also allow the audience to be in the mind of our lead character, Mark.”

Brown directs Weatherall himself as Mark – a young man looking back on the events and people that have shaped his life thus far. He shares good things, sad things; moments of harsh realisation juxtaposed with beautiful moments of acceptance and love. Moments that ebb and flow like the sea that has been so central to his life, eventually settling into a rhythm that is calming and acknowledging.

With Brown’s guidance, Weatherall plays those moments thoughtfully with a mature understanding of the significance of pause and pace in good story telling. He gives his character – and the audience – time to consider and digest a thought, or a feeling. But just enough time. He realises the need to keep moving, the importance of balance. He shares Mark’s feelings honestly, but not too explicitly or indulgently, trusting his audience, honouring their intelligence and empathy.

Hearing the same “music” as Brown, designers Jacob Nash and Chris Baldwin have created a beachscape with a huge wave that billows high behind the shoreline that is the stage. Here, alone, Mark finds a place of safety where he can tell his story.  Lighting design Chloe Olgilvie and video designer David Bergman – along with composer Wil Hughes – use that wave to echo and enhance Mark’s words, turning it into a crashing surf, a swelling ocean, a gentled incoming tide. Or, conversely a sunlit space that reflects and refracts slight movement on still water – just as Mark’s life will settle a little and allow him to move on.

Tom Weatherall has proved himself on the small screen as basketballer Malakai in the reboot of Heartbreak High, as the empathetic teenager Darren Yates in RFDS or in the ABC series All My Friends are Racist and Deadlock. On the stage he is even more impressive. There’s the same sincerity, the same slight rawness, but he’s there in person, finding the depth of the character he created under the guidance of a director who realises too clearly the double talent of the young man with whom she works.

Blue may be regarded by some as a coming-of-age story. If so, it’s a harsh story, one that is very real – but it’s told with love, and thoughtfulness; with humour, and a poetic rhythm that transforms beautifully on to the stage in the hands of this fine, young performer.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening Night

By Jacob Rajan and Justin Lewis. Black Ink Theatre Company NZ. Sydney Festival. Director: Justin Lewis. Riverside Theatres Parramatta. 17-22 January, 2023

Reviewed : January 18, 2023 *

When you’re on your final journey, hovering between paradise and hell, haunted by the mistakes you made in the past, you don’t expect to be continually vexed by a vindictive vulture. But as vultures play an important part in Indian mythology – and Parsee sky burial customs – it’s not unsurprising that playwrights Jacon Rajan and Justin Lewis conjured a belligerent, feathered scavenger to make their hero Kutisar’s final journey even more confusing – and more amusing.

Justin Lewis directs this unusual and very complex performance from New Zealand’s multi-award-winning Indian Ink Theatre Company which Rajan and Lewis established over 20 years ago. Their aim was to create theatre “that is beautiful, funny, sad and true”, to create characters “who live large in our imaginations”.  The company’s website explains their aim to produce works that blend “western theatrical traditions with eastern flavours and has been critically acclaimed for its use of live music, heightened theatricality, humour, pathos and great storytelling.”

Paradise or the Impermanence of Ice Cream – and Kutisar and his belligerent vulture – certainly do all of that.

Jacob Rajan plays the ageing Kurtisar. His illusions begin as he lies dying. He’s disturbed by the ringing of a telephone, hears it go to voice message and realises it’s his own phone. He becomes agitated but when he tries to escape, erratic music forces him to dance wildly. Accepting this confinement, he begins to confront – and create – the characters that haunt him. He becomes himself as a young man selling chai in Mumbai; his girlfriend Meera, in her ice cream shop; a strident Parsi religious; Rao, Meer’s aunt; and an ardent authority on vultures.

Rajan creates each of these characters clearly and effectively, conversing with them in a constant, often hilarious series of interchanges. Each character is distinct, each is recognisable through telling gestures and vocal nuances. Each has dimension and depth. It is incredible to watch Rajan move between them, seemingly effortlessly, but with total control and clarity, yet still sustaining an energy that radiates from the stage and is infused by the humour that the playwrights have suffused into the dialogue.

Lewis directs with tight blocking that allows Rajan’s energy to be sustained through a very spirited and challenging performance. Only when confronted by the vulture does the momentum of the performance slow. It is in those moments that Kurtisar really faces his fate – and the fate of the vultures themselves.

Puppet maker and puppeteer Jon Coddington manipulates the feathered creature who returns again and again to plague Kurtisar. Awkward but wiley, as many scavengers are, Coddinton’s vulture swoops low and lands gracelessly, its big feet clawing, its pink neck stretching towards Kurtisar, its beak opening threateningly. Rajan and Coddington work cleverly together to create a relationship that is both touching and decidedly grim for both man and bird – and perhaps for much of the culture that Kutisar is remembering.

David Ward’s sound effects – music, ringing phones, knocking, the tapping of the vulture’s beak – are carefully synchronised by Adam Olgivie with a precision that is not often quite so evident to an audience. It is that exactitude, that meticulous attention to every detail that makes this production so absorbing – and enchanting. It moves so quickly, yet there is no moment when the timing isn’t precise, or where the tight energy lags. This is a production where director, actor, puppeteer, sound and lighting designers and operators work precisely together to create a performance that is one of a kind.

Indian Ink productions have a history of awards from New Zealand and from the Edinburgh. Festival. No wonder if Paradise or the Impermanence of Ice Cream is a gauge of their creativity and vision – and the quality of their productions

It’s one of the blessings of the Sydney Festival that we have productions such as this coming to Australia – and to our western Sydney stages. Do try and get to see this one while the chance is there!

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening Night

By Giacomo Puccini. Opera Australia. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House. Jan 12 – Mar 11, 2023

Reviewed : January 12, 2023 *

Though Giacomo Puccini set La Bohème in the busy, artistic Latin Quarter of Paris in 1896, director Gale Edwards saw how easily it could be transposed to Berlin in the1930s during the final licentious years of the Weimar Republic. That was a Berlin alive with street theatre, cabaret, jazz, innovative art, Bauhaus architecture … and very probably hopeful artists struggling to make a living, just like the artists Puccini created in La Bohème.

Those struggling artists – Marcello, a painter, Rudolfo, a writer, Colline, a philosopher and Schaunard, a musician – live in a gloomy atelier, where Marcello is painting The Parting of the Red Sea on the vast walls. It is winter, so cold that Rudolfo uses the pages of his latest story to light a fire. Schaunard arrives home with money (earned by playing his violin to a dying parrot) and some food, so they celebrate accordingly.

When their landlord Benoit arrives demanding overdue rent, they ply him with wine until he drunkenly confesses to an adulterous adventure. At this, they indignantly hunt him outside, share the rent money and set off for the Café Momus.

Rudolfo, fortuitously, stays behind and meets Mimi, who knocks on the door in search of a match to light her candle. They fall in love and eventually join the others, where Marcello re-ignites his love for the beautiful, flirtatious Musetta.

Café Momus gives Puccini, and designers Brian Thomson (set) and Julie Lynch (costumes) the opportunity to introduce a colourful market place of interesting characters and a change of tempo. In the busy square outside the café, hawkers flaunt their wares to interested shoppers – ‘Aranci, datteri! Caldi i marroni (Oranges, dates! Hot chestnuts!)’ –  and children flock around Parpignol the toy seller. This scene is alive with glittering costumes, beautiful voices and bright music, especially Musetta’s risqué waltz, “Quando m’en vo (When I go along)”.

Passion and jealousy constantly divide and re-unite the lovers until, at last, they are together again, remembering their past happiness.

La Bohème is the consummate story of love found, love lost, and love regained. But this is opera, and unfortunately it is de rigueur for the ending to be unhappy. So, sadly, Mimi’s persistent illness eventually weakens her, and despite her friends’ comfort and Rudolfo’s reignited love, she succumbs to consumption and her beautiful voice quietly fades away.

This final scene is always desolate. In this production revival director Shaun Rennie and lighting designer John Rayment extend that image. With the high garret walls looming above her, Mimi lies on a low mattress centre stage. Rudolfo kneels at her side. When the others leave to give them some moments alone, Schaunard remains at the door, where light from the street throws his tall, protective shadow across the room shielding the lovers as they recall their former happiness and dreams.

Diminutive Karah Son returns as Mimi, with Iván Ayón Rivas as an adoring Rudolfo. Haotian Qi is a lithe, expressive Marcello and Julie Lea Goodwin reprises her sexy, provocative performance as Musetta. Alexander Sefton is a strong, confident Schaunard, and Richard Anderson returns as Colline. Andrew Moran is a very easily duped Benoit and though Benjamin Rasheed will play Parpignol in future performances, Tomas Dalton stepped very professionally into that role on opening night.

Puccini wrote to bring out the very best in the voices of his characters. Long, ringing notes tell of love and joy, heartbreak and delusion. Duets harmoniously bring lovers together – and draw them, pitifully, apart. The music of La Bohème is as well-known and loved as the characters and their stories, and in this production the Opera Australia Orchestra and conductor Michelangelo Mazza make it very special, particularly during the last sad moments of the production.

Picture Mimi’s very last breath, her hand falling limply. Picture Musetta, Marcello, Schaunard and Colline in a carefully blocked freeze of despair. Picture Rudolfo suddenly realising why. Then hear the orchestra come together with those last, crashing notes that explain more clearly than any words the complete desolation that he feels.

Gale Edwards and Shaun Rennie bring more than singing and music to this La Bohème. Moments are carefully and theatrically staged. There is depth in the acting as well. Iván Ayón Rivas and Haotian Qi establish the bond of good friends in the opening scenes, and the camaraderie of the friends as Schaunard and Colline return is as warm and uplifting as their singing. Julie Lea Goodwin is always expressive, and her Musetta is believably spirited. So too are the patrons and hawkers outside Café Momus, especially a very cheeky, pushy photographer!

Opera Australia continues to thrill as it uses new energies and technologies to augment the magical beauty of music that surpasses time and change.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening Night

Nathan Maynard (pakana) and writer Jamie McCaskill (Māori). Directed by Isaac Drandic. Performing Lines TAS/ Sydney Festival. Drama Theatre. Sydney Opera House. 7-8 Jan, 2023.

Reviewed : 6 January, 2023*

Hide the Dog is a story about two children, two nations and a lone native dog. It’s a story about the “celebration of adventure, friendship and the power of culture”.

Niarra and Te Umuroa are best friends, but they are sad because Te Umuroa has to go back to New Zealand (Aotearoa) to learn more about his own heritage. They hide their sadness by teasing each other until they find a surviving Tasmanian Tiger hiding in their bush playground. Niarra explains that they will have to protect it before hunters come and take it away for “science”. As helicopters hover above them, they decide to sail their new friend, whom they call “Tigs”, in a canoe across the ocean to safety in Aotearoa.

Escaping the hunters is not their only worry. They also have to contend with Māori gods and palawa spirits who try to thwart them. One rises from the water on a huge iceberg-like rock; another dances around them brandishing a spear, shouting his name and, to the delight of the young audience, farting outrageously! Undaunted, the pair sail on into the scary dark ocean fog. They are separated for a while, and Niarra is visited by a tiny bird, the spirit of her mother.

Touching moments such as that, and the explanation of why they must let Tigs go to rest in the safety of the spirit world, are handled gently by Elaine Crombie, who brings her vast story telling experience to this tender tale that brings the mystic spirituality of two nations together.

With Crombie (Pitjantjatjara & Yankunytjatjara), the talented cast includes Tibian Wyles (Girramay & Kalkadoon), Reuben Butler (Kaitamariki/Tāwhirmātea), Tyler Wilson Kokiri (Māori), Najwa Adams Ebel (Birri-Gubba) and Poroaki Merritt-McDonald (Māori)

Māori designer Jane Hakaraia uses stunning projections to create background for the story – and a cunning combination of two canoe styles for the intrepid youngsters and their thylacine friend’s long sea journey.

Though it is only in Sydney for these two days, the production will go on tour to Perth and Tasmania in March but publicity suggests a “Full itinerary to be announced soon” – so fingers crossed that it will return. To other locations in NSW very soon.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine.

* Opening performance

Creator/Director: Craig Ilott. Musical Director/Soundtrack: Joe Accaria. The Studio, Sydney Opera House. 22 December, 2022 to 12 February, 2023.

Reviewed : December 22, 2022*

Disco magic is back! The glitter balls! The sequins! The misty smoke! The shine, the sparkle, the sexy shimmer – and the SOUND! Joe Accaria calls it Disco Delirium – the pulse and groove that swept the world in the 1980s – and Velvet Rewired brings it back with a beat that’s brassy, throbbing and definitely, delightfully delirious.

Flashy 80s fashion and classic disco songs see a down-hearted Country Mike (Tom Sharah) back in the place he once found joy. Can Velvet heal his broken heart? Read his damaged mind? Help him find that place free of judgment or discrimination that he found once before?

They certainly can! And they find fantastic ways to do it. But first and foremost they do it with Disco. Above the stage, Accaria operates the pulsing soundtrack while adding his own swinging, syncopated percussion. Surrounded by flashing lights and glitter ball glitters, his sequined headphones pulsate to the disco beats that resound around him.

And on stage, Sasha Lee Saunders and Jacinta Gulisano as the Sirens sing, shimmer and shake as they introduce The Diva, the much-loved, multi-talented, Marcia Hines. Hines’ magic is stunning and the roar from the audience follows her down the catwalk as she welcomes the sad young man back to her velvety realm of wild freedom, glitzy glamour and amazing acrobatics.

Led by Hula Boy, Craig Reid, who is also the resident director of the Australian tour, aerialists Beau Sargent and Harley Timmermans and roller-skating acrobats Sven and Jan bring breathtaking feats to re-wire the downcast young man – and thrill a pleasure-seeking audience.

Reid works world winning wonder with his multiple hoops – but mixes this with the naïve joy of a child revelling in its achievements. And his multiple lightning costume changes always amaze!

Sargent and Timmermans work alone at first, Sargent twisting himself precariously through a hoop high above the catwalk, Timmermans suspended by his hands on a rope that rises as he rotates himself into unimaginable positions. Later they work in unison on the ropes, legs and arms coiled around each other as they wind and spin.

On a taut circular stage, Sven whirls Jan faster and faster, high and low, her hair flying or she herself flying from a brace around his neck.