By Eva Di Cesare, based on the book by Randa Abdel-Fattah. Monkey Baa Theatre Company. Lennox Theatre, Riverside Theatres Parramatta. Aug 30 – Sep 1, 2017

“When your home is occupied and you have no right of return, you hold on to what you can: the key to the front door; the title deeds to your land; a jar of soil”.

In this sentence from her program notes, Eva Di Cesare defines the essence of Randa Abdel-Fattah’s novel – just as her perceptive adaptation and deft direction capture the novel’s messages of the personal/political effects of occupation, violence and injustice.

Read the full review in Stage Whispers magazine, here.

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By Nicholas Christo and Johannes Luebbers. Hayes Theatre Company and New Musicals Australia. August 11 – September 9, 2017.

Writer Nicholas Christo and composer Johannes Luebbers must be delighted with this production of the musical they have spent “eight years and countless drafts creating”.

Adapted from the book Marvellous Melba by Ann Blainey, their MELBA is a tribute not just to the inspirational talent of the woman who became Australia’s “first great international presence” but to the strength and steely perseverance that made her our first self-made business woman. Using many of the arias for which she was so famous, Christo and Luebbers skilfully blend operaand musical theatre in a story of fame and success, heartache and longing.

The musical opens with the much loved soprano Emma Matthews as the mature, highly lauded Dame Nellie Melba returning Home Sweet Home to her adoring public. As her voice tremors on the final notes of Mozart’s “Porgi, amor, qualche ristoro”, we are taken back in time – and  Annie Aitkin becomes the young Nellie Armstrong, caught between a difficult marriage, a son whom she adores and her determination to nurture her gifted voice.

Read the full review in Stage Whispers magazine, here.

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By Terrence Rattigan. New Theatre, Newtown (NSW). August 9 – September 9, 2017

After the Dance is perhaps the least well known of Terence Rattigan’s plays. Set in the years between the Wars, the play censures the wealthy “bright young things” who flout the foreboding signs of unrest in Europe in favour of drinking and partying. The criticism is gentle, exposing the fears and flaws that hide beneath the brittle personas that the characters assume.

Directed by Giles Gartrell-Mills, on a set designed by John Cervenka, the play takes place in the living room of David and Joan Scott-Fowler, who have always maintained that they married for fun rather than love. However Helen Banner, a very self-righteous young woman, has fallen in love with David and is determined to make him change his ways, divorce Joan, marry her and settle down to a more serous life. Unfortunately Joan really does love David, and Helen’s plans have much more complicated consequences.

Read the full review in Stage Whispers magazine, here.

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By Dale Wasserman, adapted from the novel by Ken Kesey. Sport for Jove. Seymour Centre. August 3 – 19, 2017.

Ken Kesey’s controversial novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was based upon his experience as an orderly at a mental hospital in California. It was adapted for the stage by Dale Wasserman in 1963 with Kirk Douglas in the leading role, and the 1975 movie adaptation directed by Michael Douglas won five Academy Awards.

Whilst it exposed issues about oppression and control and the bizarre ‘medical’ treatments such as shock therapy and lobotomies being used in some institutions at the time, director Kim Hardwick’s vision is more comprehensive and symbolically suggestive:

“Ken Keseys’s metaphor for modern America is that of a mental hospital. In this case a womb-like institution able to retard development and hamper spiritual, mental and emotional growth”.

Under stark lighting designed by Martin Kinnane, on Isobel Hudson’s sterile white set, framed by plastic curtain strips and reflected in perspex mirrors, Hardwick’s vision is realised. The seemingly soul-less inmates are monitored at all times, 1984-style, with any untoward action censured by the omnipresent voice of the tyrannical Nurse Ratched.

Read the full review in Stage Whispers magazine, here.

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By Craig Higginson, based on the book by Rudyard Kipling. Nautanki Theatre. Lennox Theatre, Riverside Parramatta. Aug 3 – 5, 2017.

Nautanki Theatre have undertaken a play that requires fairly difficult physical choreography and characterisation – and a lot of organisation. This is always hard, especially if moving on to the stage with only a short time to co-ordinate the action and dialogue.

Often this results in awkward hesitations and broken pace, and unfortunately this was the case on opening night.

Whilst they must be admired for their enthusiasm, the cast seemed somewhat out of kilter with the action, despite their obvious fitness and physical stamina. This resulted in untidy scene changes that need much tighter direction and rehearsal. Similar problems with lines led to embarrassing pauses that spoilt the continuity of the dialogue.

Read the full review in Stage Whispers magazine, here.

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By Jami Brandli. The Depot Theatre, Marrickville. July 26 – Aug 12, 2017

In her commitment to giving voice to female protagonists, playwright Jami Brandli makes “no apologies for writing complicated, big, sometimes messy and often times funny, plays about women”. Far from being messy,Technicolor Life is very cleverly crafted and is yet another play that meets Depot Theatre’s aim to challenge its audiences.

It is very entertaining, despite the fact that it explores a range of thought-provoking themes. Through the eyes of fifteen-year-old Maxine and her family, Brandli’s play covers aspects of love, ambition, war, rape, post traumatic stress, voluntary euthanasia, divorce, remarriage – and the need to stay strong and independent. And it does so without preaching or moralising!

Julie Baz’s direction matches the pace and style of Brandli’s writing with a clear and empathetic vision.

Read the full review in Stage Whispers magazine, here.

By Roslyn Oades. Malthouse Theatre and Melbourne Festival production. A Performing Lines tour for Road Work. Riverside Theatres, Parramatta. July 27 to 29, 2017 and touring.

Winner of the 2014 Green Room Award for outstanding writing/adaptation for the Australian Stage, Roslyn Oades’ and her cast use her very unusual ‘headphone verbatim’ documentary theatre technique to explore both coming of age … and ageing.

Based on eighty long-form interviews with late teenagers and over 80 year olds, Oades set out to explore “the bookends” of life – the beginning of making one’s own way in life, and the looking back nearer the end. Not all of the interviews are featured in the finished work, but they are all part of the research that led to the poignant insights of the final ‘audio script’.

The style is a little difficult to accept as the script is recorded and played to the actors through headphones. Veteran actor Jim Daly plays characters as diverse as a stroke victim and a young man …

Read the full review in Stage Whispers magazine, here.

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By Deborah Brevoort. Castle Hill Players. The Pavilion Theatre. July 21 – August 12, 2017.

Is it possible that we may, some day, come to take acts of terrorism as facts of life?

Will they simply become another chapter in a history book?

Will we forget those whose lives were lost, or how horribly they died?

Not if theatre sustains its centuries old objective of finding a way to reflect on and interpret the world on the stage.

In The Women of Lockerbie, playwright Deborah Brevoort confirms that tradition – and Bernard Teuben’s production for Castle Hill Players ensures the beautiful language and carefully drawn characters of her play make the messages of Lockerbie endure.

The Pavilion Theatre stage becomes a frosty night on the hills of Lockerbie. It is the winter solstice, seven years exactly since Pan Am Flight 103 from Frankfurt to New York was blown up over the town, killing 243 passengers and 16 crew. As the wreckage rained down over Lockerbie, buildings were destroyed and 11 villagers killed.

Tonight, as the villagers keep their annual vigil, paying homage to those who were lost and those who were left to mourn, a still-grieving American mother searches the hills of Lockerbie for some sign of her son, whose body was never found.

Read the full review in Stage Whispers magazine, here.

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By J. B. Priestly. Pymble Players, NSW. 19 July- 12 August, 2017

J. B. Priestly’s play, written in the mid 20^th century but set in 1912, has been described as “a potent blend of fine dramatic craft and good old-fashioned social conscience” and Helen Williams’ production for Pymble Players emphasises both qualities of the play. Though set in England over a century ago, the play has resounding messages that are still relevant today.

The set, designed by Reg Lunn, provides the perfect background: the plush dining room of a prosperous ‘self made’ man aspiring to step even further up the English social ladder. Dinner has finished. The port is served. The family has gathered to celebrate the engagement of their daughter to the son of another prosperous, and decorated, industrialist.

But, just as the toast is drunk and the proud father begins to bluster about personal success and deny the threat of a looming war with Germany, an Inspector calls – and, bit by bit, an embarrassing and shameful succession of prejudices and injustices are exposed. One by one every member of the Birling family – and their son-in-law to be – are disgraced and besmirched because of the result of their treatment of a young girl regarded by each as below their social status.

Phil Lye blusters and puffs as the ambitious father, Arthur Birling; Liz Lynch postures as his haughty, pretentious wife, Sybil.

Read the full review in Stage Whispers magazine, here.