Reviews Archive

  I confess the name Rosalind Franklin meant nothing to me prior to hearing of Anna Zeigler’s Photograph 51, and I had never given a thought to the discoverers of DNA. Like so many scientific breakthroughs we all take for granted, the …

  Engaging from the first minute, Merlynn Tong’s Golden Blood is a journey into another world. At least, for most of us. Known only as ‘Girl’, we meet Tong’s character (yes, the playwright is also actor) as an abandoned 14-year-old in Singapore. …

  Joanna Murray-Smith’s A Doll’s House is an adaptation from the Henrik Ibsen classic. Fast forward 150 years, and her version of Nora is shopaholic, well-to-do housewife who might be living in Double Bay or Prahran. The Helmer living room is awash …

Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s tale of a university professor’s seduction of one of his students is hardly a new story, but it is so exquisitely told and enacted in this production directed by Petra Kalive that it is a delight from beginning …

Canadian playwright Adam Bock’s Before the Meeting is an astute and – perhaps inevitably – a rather sad examination of the after-effects of addiction. At its heart are remorse and compassion. Every day in a room a church basement, Gail (Jane Phegan) …

Part pure comedy, part satire and always entertaining, Genevieve Hegney and Catherine Moore are back, as unqualified as they were before but still striving to work the system, as well as work around it. Those who saw the first Unqualified, which premiered …

Super glitzy, full of colour and movement, fabulous music and mesmerising dance scenes, An American in Paris is spectacular. Inspired by Gershwin’s 1928 orchestral score and the 1951 multi-award-winning movie of the same name, Brit Christopher Wheeldon’s choreography is precise and clever. …

Light Shining in Buckinghamshire is a two-hour history lesson. It will appeal to those minutely interested in the events of England’s Civil War, from the years 1642 to 1649. The ensemble cast deliver their lines perfectly, and with passion. The first part …

Inclusivity. That’s what I kept coming back to, watching Alana Valentine’s new play Wayside Bride, the first of two works in Belvoir’s foray into rep. One is this new Australian play, the other is from Caryl Churchill and examines the aftermath of …

Opening Night is cleverly constructed: a play within a play, with the rehearsals and real-life scenes with the actors interwoven; and with leading lady Myrtle Gordon (Leeanna Walsman), a star of the stage for years, flitting in out of her realities and …