Carousel sells itself as a misunderstood love story: Julie, a respectable yet unusual girl, falls in love with the rough-around-the-edges Billy, a carousel barker with a seedy background. Things are difficult from the beginning as Billy takes out his anger and paranoia around marriage on Julie, until he eventually hits her. In a money-making scheme gone wrong, Billy unexpectedly dies and is given the chance for a redemption arc that requires a supernatural element.
Tag / review
Arcadia | UTS Backstage
Tom Stoppard’s work is a popular choice for university students for the way it balances absurdity and humour with social and cultural criticism. It’s something you can invite your tutorial group and your parents to! Arcadia is perhaps less popular than The Real Inspector Hound or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, but it’s equally fun in the overlapping intrigues of literature, sex, and an illusive hermit.
King of Pigs | Red Line Productions
Image by John Marmaras
This year has seen a number of staged examinations of domestic violence and violence against women in time with the #MeToo movement and a global recognition of the violence and abuse faced by so many women. Steve Rodgers’s new work fragments his examination across four different stories. The unnamed cast trace three violent relationships from meeting to testifying and illustrate the often subtle ways power is abused to sometimes deadly ends.
Celebrity Theatresports | Impro Australia in support of CanTeen Australia
Winning Celebrity Team with CanTeen Youth Ambassador: (left to right) Daniel Cordeaux, Monique Dykstra, Cassandra Muir, Rebecca De Unamuno, Rowan Witt
Every year the Enmore Theatre hosts Celebrity Theatresports with Impro Australia to raise funds for charity. This year, there were raffles, prizes, and performances in support of CanTeen Australia. Australia’s favourite celebrities including Broadway singers, comedians, and actors join up with Sydney’s best improv talent to compete for the Celebrity Theatresports cup! It’s all fun and games for a great cause.
The Almighty Sometimes | Griffin Theatre Company
Anna is 18 and, while she hasn’t gone to uni or really figured out a plan at all, she wants to take control of her life. Part of this includes no longer taking the medication she’s been on for her entire adolescence in order to reclaim an earlier, more authentic version of herself. This isn’t a decision just for her, though, as a new boyfriend, her mother, and her long-term psychiatrist complicate the practicalities of mental health and being unwell.
Hotel Sorrento | HIT Productions with Riverside Theatre
Image by Cathy Ronalds
Three sisters’ lives recollide after middle sister Meg’s novel is nominated for the Book Prize. With the death of their father and the questioning of Hilary’s son Troy, the sisters are forced to re-examine the life they lived in hometown Sorrento and what drove them apart. This is a piece of nostalgic Australiana from our recent history that attempts to unpack the Australian identity in a global culture.
Midsummer Mendelssohn Gala | Flinders Quartet with Chris Moore
Image by Sarah Walker
To finish up their July 2018 program, Flinders Quartet and guest violist Chris Moore performed a lively concert mixing music and theatre. It’s a charming play with text to add narration to the Quartet’s performance and movement in time with the music. The three pieces comprising this concert were distinct but carried a thread of life and joy throughout.
Carrie: the Musical | Louis Ellis Productions
Image by Rebeccalynne Photography
If recreating the classic Stephen King horror novel as a Broadway musical sounds like a bad idea to you, you’re not alone. Carrie, with music by Michael Gore, lyrics by Dean Pitchford, and book by Lawrence D Cohen, was one of the biggest flops in Broadway history. Closing after 16 previews and 5 performances, it’s a show nobody wanted to touch for nearly 25 years. This version of events focuses a lot less on the supernatural and gruesome elements and instead turns the story into a high school drama about the consequences of bullying. With the prominence of school shootings and religious extremism still in our news cycles, this production seems timely with a touch of something darker.
You’ve Got Mail | Bondi Feast
Against a pixellated Manhattan skyline at sunset (the perfect backdrop for an Internet seduction) Joe Fox and Meg Ryan talk and flirt to escape their meat-puppet bodies. It’s a modern love story: two people fall in love anonymously online without knowing that, in real life, they are rival bookshop owners. In Ang Collin’s and Sarah Hadley’s retelling of the classic 1990s romcom, though, Meg_Ryan and Tom_Hanks are a lot, lot weirder.
Permission to Spin | Apocalypse Theatre Company with Red Line Productions
Image by Robert Catto
Miss Polkadot has won Children’s Album of the Year and producer Martin and manager Jim want to get a head-start on the celebrations of what will be the launch of a global franchise. Spirits are high, drugs, alcohol, and money are involved, but Miss Polkadot, or Cristobel, wants out. The reoccurrence of a traumatic ethical confrontation means Cristobel wants to walk away and start again, costing her management everything they’ve hoped for.
Night Writes 