Category: Sydney

Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None has finally landed in Sydney and is a chilling production with a final twist sharp enough to follow you out of the theatre. It comes hot off the heels of its successful Melbourne run. In true Agatha Christie fashion, I’ll be keeping the plot twists…

What will it take for us to challenge what we worship? What matters most? Over a decade ago, S. Shakthidharan made a commitment, deep in the heart of India, to tell the story of how local communities were forced to do just that, as new “city gods” trampled in and…

Harold Pinter’s plays are a regular feature on Australian stages, with the shorter one-act plays often paired, as they are here. The Lover and The Dumb Waiter are an interesting choice of two by director Mark Kilmurry. They work well in the home of Ensemble Theatre, where the confined space…

Posh by Laura Wade is a satirical play about power, politics, and privilege, and how these forces collide within institutions. It premiered in 2009 at the Royal Court Theatre before transferring to the West End. The play was nominated for Best New Play at both the Evening Standard Awards and…

The Australian Shakespeare Company, based in Melbourne, produces two types of shows: Shakespeare (obviously!) and family-friendly theatre. Alice in Wonderland, an exuberant ball of energy, fits into the latter category. It is being performed in Sydney’s own backyard, the luscious green grass and tall wavy trees of the Royal Botanic…

In the 1980s, Lyudmila Razumovskaya, a Soviet-era Russian playwright, received a commission from the Ministry of Culture to write a play. The result was Dear Elena Sergeevna, a play about disenfranchised teens, corruption and morality. Apparently, upon her completion, it was rejected by the ministry but is now played all over…

Amber, written by and starring Nikita Waldron, is a story about true love. It was inspired by her own life experiences after losing her best friend, James, when she was 19 years old. In this context, each action and reaction in the play, every metaphorical ‘punch’ lands twice. Once, because…

Eight plays, 17 cast members, 12 hours. If Sport for Jove’s production of The Player Kings sounds epic, it is. Split into two parts, The Hollow Crown (Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V) and The War of the Roses (Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3,…

Ensemble Theatre transports us to 1930s St. Louis with their latest offering, The Glass Menagerie. Tennessee Williams’ well-known play centres around a family who are all grappling with something. A mother who loves too much and worries about her children’s futures. A daughter who locks herself away out of fear of…

What if a woman played Hamlet? Shock-horror, right? No, not today. But, when Jean Betts was at drama school back in the 1980s and 90s, it was, well, a different time. Legend has it that she performed Hamlet’s famous to be or not to be monologue to her drama teacher…