Theatre Archive

  ‘This Is Our Happy Place’ declares the sign on the classroom where the school’s Executive Committee (all parent volunteers, of course) are gathered to discuss and pontificate on matters of importance. Anyone who has ever attended a committee or a strata …

This is an absolute gem of a play. The language is delightfully eloquent, full of humour and insights along with some wonderful turns of phrase, the subject matter universal and the two cast members play their parts beautifully. Fifty-somethings Mal and Mairead …

  Deliciously snarky, both in the performances and Harold Pinter’s precise dialogue, the first play in this double bill, The Lover, lays bare power dynamics in a bourgeois marriage. Set in the 1960s, the scene is a perfectly tidy living room, presided …

Big Girls Don’t Cry is a snapshot of Redfern in the 1960s, told from a First Nations perspective. Big things were on the horizon: the 1967 referendum, for one, but before that the upcoming 1966 Indigenous Debutante Ball to be held at …

This is a memory play says Tom at the beginning of The Glass Menagerie, as he promises to give ‘truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion’ and his soft-spoken recollections and the lyricism of Tennessee Williams’ words draw us into his story …

As director Neil Armfield notes in the program, to write and stage a play about the ‘inheritance of fascism in Spain might seem a massive reach’. And indeed, for those who know little or nothing of the Spanish Civil War, the Franco …

Monique is the mother-in-law from hell in David Williamson’s biting new comedy. She’s entitled, vain, manipulative, hypocritical, selfish and self-obsessed and who knows why her three adult sons have put up with her for his long, unless it’s just for the adoration …

It is a rare play that is both entertainingly funny yet also has such serious things to say. But Arrernte playwright Declan Furber Gillick’s Jacky, a snappy 100 minutes, certainly delivers. Jacky, played by Guy Simon, is a smart and enterprising young …

This is a play about ego and ambition, ignorance and fear. It is a story of corruption, deception, ignorance and fear. But also, friendships. And there are jokes, too. These aren’t my words – they are spoken by the actor Jamie Oxenbould …

Di Smith is not new to the Australian public. Fans know her well from her role as Dr Alex Fraser in the long-running TV series A Country Practice, Australian cinema, Charlie and Boots and Emoh Ruo, Muriel’s Wedding, Puberty Blues and most recently, her …