Identity politics has been a zeigeist-y topic for a few years now with discussion, particularly amongst the arts and entertainment industries, about notions of representation, appropriation, and authenticity. In Seeking Representation, comedian Natali Caro brings together considerations of identity and celebrity to interrogate boundaries of performer, performance, and audience.
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In their second concert of the season and the one coinciding with Easter, The Song Company brought together their year’s theme Higher Ground with images of rebirth, growth, and renewal in a concert of Renaissance polyphony and new modern compositions. Fittingly, then, the concert also showcased the burgeoning talents of the company’s Apprentice Program, the up and coming voices of Australian music.
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It’s the original romcom where the beautiful and sweet Hero falls in love with the equally sweet and valiant Claudio only for their matrimony to be dashed by jealousy and greed. But love triumphs in the end and everyone gets what they deserve.
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While being one of Shakespeare’s less-performed plays, the Merry Wives of Windsor uses many of his classic theatrical elements including disguises, revenge plots, arranged marriages, and plenty of innuendo. With recognisable characters and plot points from other Shakespearean comedies, this rendition also aligns the script with equally recognisable comedy tropes from an Australian context to add extra dimension to the raunch and gossip.
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For city folk, the traditional debutante ball might seem like an outdated idea with unwelcome patriarchal overtones but the deb is still a thriving cultural tradition in many rural cities around Australia. It’s an exciting event where young adults get to celebrate who they are and mark the transition into adulthood all with a bit of pomp and glamour. But this year in Dunburn, the city and country perspectives collide with disastrous consequences for a small town already on the brink of collapse.
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Andrew Bovell’s 2016 family drama Things I Know to Be True has maintained a continued resonance with Australian audiences as evidenced in at least three productions across Sydney in recent years. In the most recent iteration, a fear of change forms the central focus as the Price family faces a year of growing up and letting go.
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Last year the icon Stephen Sondheim passed away and the loss was particularly felt amongst the queer theatre kids (and adults) who grew into themselves through the soundtrack of Sondheim’s love stories. In this celebration of the man’s legacy, Little Triangle present an honorary cabaret with a twist: sweeping, scalding, passionate love but no straights, only queer!
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While it might not seem that a play about the English Civil Wars and the Putney Debates of 1640s England would have much resonance in 21st century Australia, Caryl Churchill’s framing, even some 45 years after the first staging, see our protests as rehashings of the same concerns of religious freedom, democracy, and social justice.
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This review comes from Night Writes guest reviewer Josephine Lee
Wayside Bride is a new Australian play that celebrates the heartaches and beauty of Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross. Around 2016, the playwright Alana Valentine put a call out for stories of people who were married there and, over the years of interviewing, listening and writing, she has created this play. With a mix of verbatim storytelling and time travel, she shines a spotlight on the importance of community and social work in preserving this remarkable piece of Australian history.
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Maybe if you watch a lot of British crime dramas then you’ve wondered to yourself how you would react if you were the person fated to discover a dead body. Or you’ve mused about how the “woman walking her dog” or “bicyclist” is doing now after their discovery aired on the nightly news. For one person, that moment was the end of the story, for everyone else, it’s the beginning.
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