Theatre and musicals in Melbourne this week

Way back when Tim Burton was a much weirder filmmaker, my wee brother and I were unreasonably thrilled by the chaos engine of awfully bad behaviour that was Michael Keaton’s unhinged and unwashed demon, Betelgeuse.  The grotty stripe-suited monster ate up the 1988 film of not quite the same name – the studio figured folks would stay away unless the title was simplified to Beetlejuice. Named after the red supergiant star blazing ferociously in the constellation of Orion, some 600 light years from our solar system, Betelgeuse is an outcast from the hilariously bureaucratic afterlife, aka the Netherworld. Which leaves him preying on the naïve recently deceased, like sweet young couple Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis), in an attempt to crowbar open the sort of ridiculous loophole the Greek gods are fond of. Say his – apparently too complex – name three times and he’ll be unleashed on the mortal coil once more.  But Betelgeuse’s sleazy attentions are soon distracted by Winona Ryder’s goth child Lydia, when she reluctantly moves into Adam and Barbara’s now-empty house with her dad, Charles (disgraced actor Jeffrey Jones), and his new squeeze, OTT sculptor Delia (fabulously demented goddess Catherine O’Hara). A smash hit, Beetlejuice is a wild and unruly thing writhing with unhinged ideas, from its stop-animated black and white sand worms to characters shrunk into a model of sleepy town Winter River, and on to the hilariously-depicted dead of the surreal...

When the gauzy wall of Christina Smith’s simple but effective set swooshes up, sweeping us into the first of five apartments we will visit during Mother Play – subtitled A Play in Five Evictions – it is impossible to escape the all-commanding presence of Sigrid Thornton.  Clad in a fur coat and sporting a bouffant wig of Nicole Kidman-level mightiness, even before she is spun around to face us in a classically stylish Eames chair, her imperiously anxious Phyllis exerts the magnetic pull of a black hole. And that’s more or less where we find ourselves in this latest work from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel, who borrows her own mother’s name and a little of their personal history. In a dingy basement apartment that Phyllis has negotiated for a steal on the back-breaking deal: her beloved son, Carl (Ash Flanders), will take out the trash.  If you ask his younger sister, Martha (Yael Stone), that could include their mother, whose absence of tenderness consumes all around her, except the scraps claimed by the cockroaches that infest their newfound home, as playfully projected by lighting designer Niklas Pajanti and, in one memorably goofy moment, portrayed by a waving puppet. They find themselves in this perilously impoverished situation because the kids’ father, Phyllis’ philandering ex, has upped and left them. An absence rather than an unseen presence, he’s rarely mentioned. Phyllis is mostly furious that her postal service typing pool gig now must sustain all...

Looking for something to warm your heart this winter? We've got just the answer: beloved musical Annie is returning to Melbourne after a smash-hit run in Sydney. With a knock-out cast that includes Anthony Warlow as Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks, Debora Krizak as Miss Hannigan and Greg Page (aka the OG Yellow Wiggle) as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, this tale of hope, family and friendship is one you won't want to miss.  Annie is showing at the Princess Theatre from July 8. Now, who's ready to belt out 'It’s the Hard-Knock Life'? *** Time Out Sydney reviewed Annie when it played at the Capitol Theatre in April. Read on for that four-star review:   Just over a decade since it was last seen in Australia, Annie is back – bursting onto the Capitol Theatre stage filled with optimism, joy, and hope. Director Karen Mortimer revives this quintessential piece of musical theatre with a sentimental production that preserves the charm and flair found in Thomas Meehan’s book. For those living under a rock (mainly me), this Tony Award-winning musical follows the story of 11-year-old Annie, who is growing up in an orphanage in 1930s New York, under the cruel eye of Miss Hannigan. In the midst of the Great Depression, pessimism is all around, but chipper young Annie has the antidote: hope. Encouraging others to believe that “the sun will come out tomorrow”, Annie’s enduringly positive spirit seems to finally pay off, when billionaire Oliver Warbucks chooses to take her in for two weeks...

It’s not uncommon for theatre productions to cast teenage characters a good bit older, body-swerving labour laws limiting the amount of time a young performer is on stage, and rightly so. At least the audience’s distance, unless you forked out for exxy tickets, allows hand-waving fuzz. When Ben Platt was cast in the Tony Award-winning Broadway run of Dear Evan Hansen, he could just about pass for 20. Not so much when he also played the high schooler in the big screen adaptation while closer to 30. So if you go in cold to MTC’s latest Tony-festooned Broadway import, Kimberly Akimbo, you might find yourself blinking for a moment at 60-something soprano and musical theatre matriarch Marina Prior doing so. But there’s an in-show explanation. Her titular character, Kimberly Levaco, is an old soul in a 16-year-old’s body, one that’s rapidly aging at four times the normal rate because of a rare genetic condition.Jaunty opening number ‘Skater Planet’, set at the local ice rink, establishes her outsider status. “It’s Saturday night and I’m the new girl, so I get to start from scratch… Sure, tonight I’m getting looks, but tomorrow they might see me.” The theys are a quartet of Bergen County, New Jersey, teenagers who look the part: Delia (Allycia Angeles), who secretly fancies Teresa (Alana Iannace), who quietly digs Martin (Marty Alix), who’s pining for Aaron (Jacob Rozario), who in turn only has eyes for Delia.  An adorkably awkward gang, they aren’t in touch with their feelings...