Melbourne theatre, musical and dance reviews

A new batch of tickets to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child are going on sale on Tuesday May 7 at 11am. The tickets are for dates from February 5 to March 22. The first rule of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, is that you don’t talk about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Safeguarding spoilers is an expected responsibility for anyone who attends the Potter-verse’s first on-stage outing. There’s even a hashtag: #KeepTheSecrets. But in truth (as far as theatre critique is concerned, at least), JK Rowling needn’t have worried. This marathon, five-hour spectacle has a plot so dense and sprawling, so wonderfully, unashamedly elaborate, it would take many thousands of words more than any theatre review to even scratch the surface. While we may have been sworn to secrecy about Cursed Child’s plot, we can reveal that the hype – and rarely has a piece of theatre ever generated such fever-pitched buzz – is entirely deserved. And not just because of the quality of the production. The masterminds behind the show – led by Rowling, playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany – have not merely set out to put on a play, but rather craft a rich and detailed immersive experience. To this end, Melbourne’s Princess Theatre has undergone a top to bottom $6.5 million makeover, transforming its interiors to match a Hogwartsian, Potterfied aesthetic. If this sounds like an unnecessary extravagance, it’s probably an indication this play isn’t for you. The success of Cursed Child, which has

Melbourne Fringe is known for being the festival where we can see new work from independent artists. Polygamy, Polygayou is a new musical created, without a cent of funding, by some of Melbourne’s best indie cabaret artists and comedians. It might continue to develop and change until it becomes an international cult hit, which will be described as “Hedwig meets Book of Mormon meets Showgirls.” Or this will be your only chance to see it. Either way, you’ll get the bragging rights of “I saw the very first season” or a great story about how “I once saw a super camp, super queer, super feminist musical about polygamist sister wives becoming a superstar group called the Spouse Girls”. Alice Tovey, Margot Tanjutco and Hayley Tantau have each won adoring fans, award nominations and critical raves for their solo work in cabaret and comedy. Each confront ideas of what women are expected to be on stages, in relationships and in life, and refuse to accept the limitations of these expectations. Charity Werk was a 2018 Raw Comedy competition finalist and is already questioning expectations about how women are represented by drag. Evelyn (Werk) was Edgar’s first wife and somehow never got pregnant. But they lived in Mormon(ish) Old South Wales where polygamy’s cool and the problem could be solved by Catherine (Tovey), whose dad who was happy to give her away to be wife number two. She also didn’t get pregnant. Then along came Brandi (Tanjutco) who knew her skill was in being a sugar baby

The last time audiences saw a big budget musical adaptation of a Roald Dahl novel was when the Royal Shakespeare Company teamed up with Tim Minchin for the incomparable wonder that was Matilda. So naturally – even though no two shows are alike and you can’t bottle lightning and yada yada – we are going to compare Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to that, and naturally it’s going to come up short. Best to get that out of the way early. But, once you’ve brushed away the fog of expectation, it’s pretty easy to enjoy yourself here; you don’t even need a particularly sweet tooth. This is largely because Dahl’s original, like all his work, is as brittle and nutty as it is sweet. The story of poor Charlie Bucket (Benjamin Belsey, Elijah Slavinskis, Edgar Stirling, Lenny Thomas, Lachlan Young), so impoverished he can only have a single bar of chocolate on his birthday, winning a golden ticket to the magical wonderland that is Willy Wonka’s (Paul Slade Smith) Chocolate Factory, is a morality tale of the most gruesome and delectable kind. Charlie’s fellow winners – Augustus Gloop (Jake Fehily), Veruca Salt (Karina Russell), Violet Beauregard (Jayme-Lee Hanekom) and Mike Teavee (Harrison Riley) – are all hideous creatures of desire and self-gratification. Only Charlie is pure of heart, and deserves the ultimate prize. This adaptation has gone through many iterations since it opened in London on Drury Lane in 2013, with massive changes in scale and content. The original sets were lavi

In 2004, Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith presented The Burlesque Hour. It was subversive, queer and feminist, and as empowering as it was shattering. With diverse artists telling very personal stories, it refused to present women with a negative gaze. And as it hurt to recognise how negative we are about bodies – especially our own – its exaggeration and celebration of all sexuality was so positive that I remember where I sat the first time I saw it. Since then, they have continued (without ongoing funding) to develop new work, and introduce and mentor new artists. The stories change, but always start with changing perceptions so that the lens of any old gaze is crushed into sand. As they have become Melbourne institutions – when will the laneway behind fortyfivedownstairs be re-named Finucane & Smith? – they have been to festivals all over the world, often as the first Australian work seen at the festival, and regularly work in central Australia. Art vs Extinction is the second part of the Rapture series. While she’s supported by a mini choir (the always-exquisite Mama Alto, newly-welcomed opera singer Piera Dennerstein and pianist Rachel Lewindon), it’s Finucane’s most personal and revealing work. Last year’s Part 1 was about spirituality; this year’s began when she received a grant to go to Antarctica. Here she saw whales, got a free jacket, conquered the humiliation of karaoke and met her Ice Queen. Finucane’s queens are women who will change the world. This one is hun

When Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins premiered in 1990, George Bush Sr was in power and the Gulf War was underway. Audiences during war time weren’t really ready for a musical about the dark heart of the American dream, and it closed early. In 2004 it was remounted on Broadway and won four Tonys. Its time had come. Come from Away feels like the reverse: a musical that suits its time, is perhaps even flattered a little by it. It’s of course impossible to predict, but it seems unlikely that this show will play quite so well in 15 years. Something about its message, its attitude and its structure relies heavily on the audience’s willingness, even hunger, to receive it. We are living in dark times, and a show like this certainly hits the sweet spot. Does that necessarily make it a great show? Certainly, it tells a warm and reassuring tale about a community who rallies for people it doesn’t know, and in that regard it is a necessary and timely one. On the morning of September 11, 2001 a total of 38 planes carrying 6,579 passengers were diverted to the remote airspace in Newfoundland, near the town of Gander. They didn’t know why, nor even where they were, but they soon learnt just how kind and welcoming the locals could be. Gander (and neighbouring towns) took them all in, almost doubling the local population in a single day; they fed them, clothed them and housed them. They broke the news of the terrorist attacks in New York, and they gave them phones to contact loved ones. And the