Category: Theatre
Review: Second Coming Is Saving The Planet, One Laugh At A Time
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★★★★☆ La Boite Theatre and Playlab Theatre present Second Coming, a spectacular and humorous take on leaving this world for another. Set in 2065, this world premiere, directed by Ian Lawson, imagines a future where Earth is burning, and humanity’s last hope lies in an ambitious mission to save its…
Review: Reservoir Dogs Meets Shakespeare In Playful Mash Up
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★★★½ The lyrical genius of Shakespeare collides with the razor‑edged storytelling of Quentin Tarantino in The Ghostlight League’s return to William Shakespeare’s Reservoir Dogs. Written by Sydney Shakespeare Company Artistic Director Steven Hopley and directed by The Ghostlight League Artistic Director Rob Lloyd, the production delivers exactly what its title…
Review: A View From The Bridge Is A Must See At New Theatre
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★★★★★ New Theatre’s production of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge is a powerful exploration of the fallacies of masculinity. Tragic playwright Arthur Miller is best known for the 1949 play Death of a Salesman and the 1953 play The Crucible. A View from the Bridge came out not…
Review: Gunawarra Re-Creation, 2026 Clancestry Festival
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★★★★★ “To see my culture. To hear my language. To see my traditional dance on a mainstage is beyond my wildest dreams and beyond my ancestors’ wildest dreams. Telling this story has been a gift. Weaving creation stories with narratives of today are vital in understanding who I am and…
Review: Top Silk Peels Back The Gloss On 80s Ambition
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★★★½ Top Silk, David Williamson’s 1989 play revived at Ensemble Theatre Sydney, goes full ‘80s. There’s ambition, corruption, family drama, gloss and, of course, the shoulder pads. The play captures the gilded surface and corrupt underbelly of the decade in true Williamson form. Jane (Gordon) is a legal aid solicitor…
Review: Bennelong In London Gives History A Powerful Voice
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★★★★½ Jane Harrison’s Bennelong in London, directed by Ian Michael in its world premiere at Sydney Theatre Company, is a haunting, vital piece of truth-telling. It takes history off the museum walls and asks us to feel it in our bones. In a cosy living room, actor Sebastian Anderson (Guy…
Review: Ya’Djin Spirit Women, 2026 Clancestry Festival
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★★★★★ “When you really hold up a mirror and see who we truly are, we come from this beauty, we’re a reflection of this beauty, it walks in us, it’s in us, f***! How can you be ugly when you come from that.” Aunty Chantay Link A traditional smoking ceremony…
Review: Funeral Flowers Is A Beautiful Solo Tour De Force
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★★★★★ I’ve got a riddle for you: where in Victoria can a single actor command a room so completely that an audience sits spellbound for an entire hour? The answer lies in St Kilda East at Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre. The Winter season of Funeral Flowers marks my first encounter…
Review: Logan St Uncovers The Forgotten Histories Beneath Adelaide’s Streets
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★★★★★ Before Logan St begins, its audience is asked to speak. Across a floor-to-ceiling screen, Uncle Lewis O’Brien and Aunty Lynette Crocker welcome us to Kaurna Yarta. Matt Byrne’s camera moves through the landscape, capturing burbling streams and smoke curling through Country. Together, the audience declares that we have not…
Review: Uncle Vanya Is Beautifully Performed & Elegantly Staged
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★★★★☆ Since it was first performed in 1899, the endless adaptations of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya speak to its eternal themes. What does it mean to live a good life? Is there a path out of despair? How can we coexist when those we’re closest to also feel like our captors?…
Review: Steel Magnolias Returns To Melbourne In Full Bloom
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★★★★½ Picture this: Six women, one small-town beauty parlour, a series of life-changing moments unfolding over coffee and clouds of hairspray. Steel Magnolias returns to Melbourne in full bloom, with an astounding production and tremendous cast delivering a jubilant finale against the stunning backdrop of the Athenaeum Theatre’s old-world charm. Set…
Review: Bell Shakespeare’s Mackenzie Is Something Really Special
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★★★★★ Bell Shakespeare’s new production has ruthless egos, shifting rivalries, existential dread – but no, we’re not in the wilds of Scotland, on the way to Inverness. This is Hollywood, circa 2006, where the hair may be blonder, but the contest for the throne is as fierce as ever. Mackenzie…
Review: At What Cost? A Must See Triumph For Perth
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★★★★★ When it comes to Aboriginality, who gets to decide your identity? Does it come down to the colour of your skin or the mob who raised you? Or is it just ‘a feeling’? In Australian colonial history, Tasmania came as close as possible to genocide. From an estimated population…
Review: Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) Delivers Riotous Regency Chaos In Sydney
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★★★★☆ The award-winning play, Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) by Isobel McArthur, has made its Sydney debut as the second stop on its national tour. This adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel is told as it should be: through gossip. Directed by Simon Harvey, it follows the plot of Pride and…
Review: Don Giovanni Sees Opera Australia At Its Most Inventive
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★★★★½ A red petrol pump stands at stage left. It looks like scenery, a piece of period detail. Then you remember Chekhov: do not place a gun on stage unless somebody is going to use it. Opera Australia’s touring Don Giovanni does use the pump. By the end, it has…
Review: The Diary of Anne Frank Balances Heartbreak With Hope
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★★★★½ The Diary of Anne Frank premiered on Broadway in 1955 and won several Tony Awards, including Best Play and Best Actress. In 1956, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The original script was written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, in close collaboration with Anne’s father, Otto Frank…
Review: The Jungle and The Sea Brings A Forgotten War Into Sharp Focus
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★★★½ There are moments in The Jungle and the Sea that crack right through you, that shake you out of the comfort of your theatre seat and into something devastatingly real. S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack’s epic companion piece to Counting and Cracking, now returning to Belvoir St Theatre, is drawn from real-life…
Review: Pride & Prejudice Is Love At First Sight
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★★★★★ It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan in possession of a ticket to Queensland Theatre Company’s Pride & Prejudice will have a greatly enjoyable time. Following a sell-out season last year that unfortunately ended early because of Cyclone Alfred, Queensland Theatre Company once again ignites…
Review: August Osage County Heralds Theatre’s Next Generation
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I walked into August: Osage County at Metro Arts on Saturday night with no prior knowledge. I had seen a production by the Acting cohort at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University before, so I knew they were good. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the storytelling I was about…
Review: Uncle Vanya, Rebooted For The Doom Scrolling Age
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★★★★★ “Sit anywhere you like. Just don’t step on the dirt.” It is the first instruction audiences receive on entering the AC Arts Main Theatre. Three islands of red earth spread across the floor before the stage. Two more sit closer to the action. Behind them, trees sway across a…
Review: The Man Who Came To Dinner Is Christmas In July With Claws
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★★★★½ Peter Goers may be one of the few Adelaide performers who could walk on stage as Sheridan Whiteside and make the audience feel the casting joke before the first barb has fully landed. Following his successful return to the stage last year in Harvey, Goers now plays the acerbic…
Review: Steel Magnolias Blossoms In Perth
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★★★★★ Steel Magnolias was first brought to life as a play by Robert Harling in 1987 in the US, inspired by the death of his sister from Type 1 diabetes. It was then turned into a movie in 1989 starring huge names like Dolly Parton and Julia Roberts, and now…
Review: Doubt A Parable Asks The Big Questions
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★★★★½ What do we do when confronted with something that threatens our worldview? Do we double down on our convictions based on a refusal to entertain uncertainty or a fear of change? What if our suspicions are aroused, but for which we have no real proof? Do we proceed with…
Review: Silence By Subverse Theatre Turns History Into Warning
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★★★★☆ In times of political crisis and economic downturn, it is common for the arts to turn towards a nostalgia for the ‘glorious’ past. Subverse Theatre’s Silence, however, is anything but a lament for bygone eras. It is a very contemporary look at political turmoil through the lens of a pre-Medieval…
Review: The Dapto Chaser Is Richly Funny & Quietly Devastating
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★★★★☆ Mary Rachel Brown’s 2010 play The Dapto Chaser makes its Ensemble Theatre debut at a time when the greyhound industry is shrinking under the weight of past indiscretions (to put it mildly) and a vanishing working class. It’s a play that examines the damage gambling wreaks on families, and the strength…
Review: The Day Of The Triffids Is Still Surprisingly Relevant
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★★★★☆ The Day of the Triffids was originally written as a novel by John Wyndham in 1951. Today, adapted by award-winning director J. James-Moody, it takes the form of a play at New Theatre in Sydney. The post-apocalyptic tale is set in London after a meteor shower leaves its population…
Review: 360 Allstars Celebrates The Joy Of Mastering A Skill
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★★★★☆ BMX, basketball, breakdancing, acrobatics and drumming come together in 360 ALLSTARS, a high-energy urban circus that celebrates the artistry of street culture through an impressive display of athleticism and skill. Directed by Gene Peterson and presented by Onyx Productions, 360 ALLSTARS features an international cast of world champions and…
Review: First, Do No Harm Puts Ethics Under The Microscope
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★★★☆☆ First, Do No Harm is an original play by AACTA-nominated and award-winning playwright Grace Malouf. It is one of three plays produced by NIDA in association with bAKEHOUSE Theatre (and Talia M-K presents) as part of the NIDA KXT New Writers, New Works Festival. The show surrounds a couple’s…
Review: Losing Face Is Theatre Worth Your Time
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★★★★★ It is unusually easy to write about new Australian work, Losing Face. Melbourne Theatre Company has produced a comedy so expertly tuned and consistently funny that the review feels almost incidental beside the experience itself. The only responsible response is not to over-explain it, but to insist upon it:…
Review: Lose To Win Finds Strength In Survival
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★★★★★ “In this country, you think it’s your right to have three meals a day. Me, where I came from? I think it’s a miracle.” – Mandela Mathia, Performer / Writer A curved backdrop overlooks several forlorn-looking suitcases of various sizes. Dotted alongside these are crates filled with items. A lone…
