Melbourne theatre, musical and dance reviews

Early on in Martyna Majok’s quietly devastating and Pulitzer Prize-winning Cost Of Living, a character stands on the threshold of a small apartment in New Jersey to offer his ex-wife some unsolicited advice. After his wife Ani (Rachel Edmonds) was paralysed in an accident, Eddie (Aaron Pedersen) quickly left her. But here he is in an open-buttoned flannel to tell her one way she might recover some feeling in her body – by listening to music. Ani, never one to shy away from calling Eddie a prick, tears him a new one, thank god. But eventually she concedes that there is some truth to his advice. “You listen,” she says, tapping her finger on the toggle of her motorised wheelchair like she’s playing piano, “and… your body tries to imitate the… sense for the things it’s missing. The broken things. The shit that’s disconnected. And it tries to bring everything back together.” It’s as good a metaphor as any for Majok’s show, which arrives in Melbourne after much-lauded seasons in Brisbane and Sydney. This is a work about connection: what we do to seek it out and why we might deny it. Brought to the Sumner Theatre by director Anthea Williams, it’s a challenging and life-affirming watch, both expertly acted and beautifully rendered. The play’s two-hour run time is split between two storylines. There’s Eddie and Ani: two exes trying to reconnect while navigating ongoing caregiving and the long-held resentments reserved for the recently separated. And Jess (Mabel Li) and John (Oli Pizze

Ryan Stewart's Kinder, at Melbourne Fringe, turns the familiar chaos of getting ready into a charming hour-long performance about growing up and getting out.  Playing Goody Prostate, a drag queen with a ticking deadline – due at the local library’s reading room by 1pm to perform to (shudder) kids – Stewart’s show is layered with wit, queerness, and a dash of childlike nostalgia. Of course, the journey to kid-friendly drag isn't without hurdles: an overhead clap keeps Goody on track, protesters gather outside the library, and Goody wrestles with toning down their typically uncensored routine. But what do kids like? More pressingly, what did they like as a kid? The set – part bedroom, part dressing room, part rented basement – is a liminal space for Goody’s musings and self-reflection. Stewart strips down, dressing in playful patterns and statement knee-high boots while recounting formative memories: their parents' divorce, coming out to their father, private school, all peppered with a raspy, German-accented queer rage.  The show leans heavily on monologues, which too often meander. While they’re broken up by well-choreographed drag performances, a cereal break and a power outage, there’s a lack of tension or cohesion with Goody reaching for too many contemplative threads. Still, beneath it, a subtle commentary on what it means to be heard, to be a child, and to grow up begins to emerge. If the script lacks a certain tautness, Stewart’s charm and talent more than compensate. W

Ash Flanders loves the drama. So much so that the committed actor, writer, and proudly flouncing flaneur laboured for years in dinner theatre. Sticking fast to the cause ever since (except for that odd little blip in legal service admin), he’s a survivor, crafting a glittering career out of mining his loved ones’ misfortunes for hilariously melancholic shows. Works like End Of, addressing the ailing health of his muse, his beloved mother, and This is Living, riffing off his boyfriend’s cancer scare that played out during lockdown.  Both foolishly unsuspecting souls pop up in Flanders’ latest gem, meta-textually unmooring Melbourne Fringe show A Brief Episode. Funnily enough, it could see him splash into legal waters as murky as the crims whose garbled statements he used to jot down poorly. You see, Flanders is making a TV pilot about him, his mum and his hon (who did not sign NDAs). Or at least he might be. For confidentiality reasons, having signed away his life on the dotted line, he’s not supposed to say. So he’s keeping its existence (or not) as vague as a gay man fond of spilling the tea can (not very vague at all). Faced with the suddenly real(ish) promise of becoming a star in the making of his own life’s drama, all Flanders has to do is whip up 45 pages of a pilot in the steadfastly unfriendly screenwriting software tool Final Draft, whose ominous name heaps on even more pressure. Staring frantically at a blank screen, he decides he and his man must change the scenery

“No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one.” So said iIll-fated president JFK, referring to the surreal image of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức sitting cross-legged and perfectly calm as he was engulfed by flames. The Vietnamese monk was protesting against persecution of the Buddhist faith by the government of Catholic president Ngô Đình Diệm. Captured by award-winning photographer Malcolm Browne in 1963, the startling shot is as powerful now as it was then.   What cause would you be willing to die for? For the biblically named Corinthian, the fictional character holding up Naomi creator Patrick Livesey’s latest breathtaking Fringe solo show, I Hope This Means Something, the answer he winds himself up towards is the climate crisis. Arguably the greatest threat to the planet, tragically it’s one too many of us – and certainly our political leaders – find all too easy to ignore, whether through corrupt financial incentives or fearful paralysis. And yet Corinthian cannot turn away from this seemingly inexorable disaster he’s determined to head off, even if it consumes him. Raised by a single mum in the bird-flocked wetlands of the Coorong in South Australia, they tend a historical bluestone cottage in the sort of country town where everyone knows your name. There’s a touch of Tennessee Williams’ hothouse drama to Corinthian’s longing for her wavering attentions and baked cake failure-ignited depressions, amplified by M’ck McKeague’s flo

As Drake’s ‘Hotline Bling’ echoes through Fortyfivedownstairs, audiences are drawn into the world of Nicci Wilks, poised for her performance in Bad Boy as part of Melbourne Fringe. Had I been oblivious to Patricia Cornelius’s hallmark style – characterised by incisive examinations of contemporary masculinity, misogyny, and domestic violence – the song’s implications might have eluded me. Or perhaps not, given that domestic violence saturates our headlines. Yet, within the 60-minute runtime, this weighty topic feels both rushed and stretched.  This one-person show is a collaboration between Cornelius, Susie Dee, and Wilks, following the footsteps of their earlier work, Runt. In a gender inversion, Wilks plays a male character who first presents as a grotesque clown, before (perhaps too promptly) shedding the makeup to reveal an ‘everyman’ named Will. He pisses, grunts and thrusts, before falling for student-nurse Kathy. What ensues is your classic boy-meets-girl-they-have-kids-gone-wrong narrative, exploring the complexities of their relationship as it becomes ensnared in a cyclical system of abuse. In the first act, the creative trio balances levity and gravity. Even the stalking scene, marked by humour and impressive physicality by Wilks, underscores the absurdity and predictability of these archetypes.  Dee’s direction makes use of a circular stage, enhanced by red neon signs that circulate above like a digital noticeboard. Terms like “stalking” and the lyrics to The Police

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