Vaanie Krishnan

It’s been over a week since S Shakthidaran opened his latest collaboration with Eamon Flack at Belvoir St Theatre, The Jungle and the Sea (playing at Belvoir St Theatre until Dec 18, 2022), the much-anticipated follow-up to Counting and Cracking, to praise from critics and audiences alike. And funnily enough, Shakthidaran’s life actually shares a lot of similarities with my own. We are both Tamil, Hindu and have mothers that were heavily involved in the classical artforms of our culture.  Almost everyone in our community learnt how to sing, dance or play an instrument. Our weekends were filled with music concerts and Arangetrams – derived from the Tamil word for stage (‘arangu’) and ascent (‘etram’), meaning to ascend the stage – some of which were held by Shakthi’s mother through Lingalayam Dance Company. As Shakthi reminds me, this is a “cultural habit that is built up over a couple of a hundred years.” Art for us is for everyone, by everyone – but here in Australia, it is often just for the community.  Every night of Counting and Cracking, Sri Lankan and South Asian audience members would tell Shakthi how surprised they were to see all these other people love the story. “I came to realise that a lot of migrants are their full selves at home or inside their own community, and then when they're out in wider community, or in public in Australian life, they put on a mask and perform a simulated version of themselves.” With so much to unpack, naturally I started at the centre o

A masterful collaboration from Western Sydney-based playwright S. Shakthidharan and Belvoir St Theatre’s Artistic Director, Eamon Flack, the internationally-acclaimed Counting and Cracking is an epic tale following a Sri Lankan-Australian family across the span of 50 years, four generations, and two continents – featuring 19 performers from six countries. It’s been five years since the play made its five-star debut at the stately Sydney Town Hall for the 2019 Sydney Festival, leaving an indelible mark on the theatrical landscape. Since then, it has toured internationally to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and on to the UK; won several prestigious awards; and spawned a companion piece in The Jungle and the Sea. Following its Melbourne premiere and before it heads to New York for its US debut, Counting and Cracking has mounted a highly anticipated return Sydney season. The expansive new staging at Carriageworks reunites some of the original company to reprise their roles, alongside new talents. It would be easy for a show that has picked up so many accolades to become too aware of itself, perhaps seeking spectacle and opulence over its original integrity when given the opportunity to develop further. But this ambitious iteration, reimagined in the understated warehouse space, retains its humble heart – employing the theatrical form with a lived-in, child-like sense of wonder to tell a global tale of love, conflict, identity and refuge.  ...It’s a performance that can only be desc

Touted as the greatest love story ever told, Shakespeare’s tragedy about a forbiddenromance between two lovers from feuding families has inspired countless adaptationsaround the world. Its themes of undying love, fate and the duality of life and death haveinspired millions of theatre productions, operas, symphonies, literature and art. The latest take on the famous star-crossed lovers to land on the Sydney stage is a modernballet from the prestigious L.A. Dance Project, which comes with a couple of distinctivetwists. Depending on which session you attend, your “Romeo” and “Juliet” could be two men, two women, or a man and a woman. While same-sex couples are still a rare sight in the professional ballet world, this work also breaks with tradition in more ways than one. Having toured all over the world, Romeo & Juliet Suite is a site-specific thematic account of Shakespeare’s tragedy that utilises live film elements to dramatise the classic – a lá Kip Williams’ The Picture of Dorian Gray – with entertaining cinematic results. Twelve dancers represent the feuding families, with only Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt and Mercutio identified (that is, you can fill in the gaps if you know the basic plot). Much of the story’s complexity is stripped away, with the locations of events remaining nondescript, and there’s also no appearance of a disapproving parent or a meddling Friar Lawrence. The brainchild of artistic director/choreographer Benjamin Millipied (Black Swan), Romeo & Juliet Suite is

Musicals are often a product of their time. So, it is somewhat expected that the show will reflect the sentiment, the tragedy, the conflict and the beliefs of that time. What is rare, however, is when a revival of a musical manages to find that stark relevance again, as if history is repeating itself. Off the back of the celebrated Broadway revival starring Ben Platt, this new staging of Parade arrives in Sydney following a sold-out Melbourne premiere in July 2023.  First staged in 1998, Parade is based on the true story of the 1913–1915 trial, imprisonment, and lynching of Leo Frank (Aaron Robuck – The Great Gatsby: An Immersive Theatrical Experience). A Jewish man from Brooklyn, Frank was a fish out of water amongst the residents of Atlanta, Georgia, where he worked as the superintendent of a pencil factory. When he was accused of the tragic assault and murder of a 13-year-old girl named Mary Phagan (Adeline Hunter – Urinetown), the townsfolk’s prejudices and the sensationalist media coverage of the trial stirred up a storm of antisemitic tension. Witness tampering and scapegoating by the local police force led to Frank being landed with a guilty verdict, a ruling which most modern researchers strongly disagree with. Most significantly, the historic trial spurred the formation of the Anti-Defamation League, whilst concurrently initiating the revival of the Klu Klux Klan. Despite some difficulties...this show succeeds in reminding the audience that prejudice, hate, and the

Have you ever seen somebody embody joy? Someone so comfortable and proud of where they have come from, of where they are now, that they vibrate with unwavering enthusiasm? That’s what it’s like to watch Mandela Mathia perform. Lose to Win is an autobiographical work that tells the story of Mathia’s journey to Australia, or what he calls “Paradise”. From his birth in South Sudan, to the bustling streets of Egypt, to the rickety boat that brought him to Australia as a refugee, Mathia finds poetry in his smallest wins. This deeply personal performance lands at Belvoir St Theatre in 2024 after premiering at the Old Fitz Theatre in 2022 under Red Line Productions. Sharing the same warm and minimalistic staging as Belvoir's concurrent production of Nayika: A Dancing Girl, Director Jessica Arthur has kept the communal campfire feeling from the original staging, focusing the activity in a semi-circle around a simple black dance mat. Props, including traditional jewellery, clothing and other adornments sit within reach behind Mathia. Beside them, sits musician Yacou Mbaye and his assortment of wooden instruments including several different kinds of drums. We need more theatre makers like these, so that we might learn and share in the joy of what it means to lose to win. These elements create an inviting and immersive experience, but it's Mathia’s command of the monologue that calls us to attention. Interspersed with the more harrowing parts of his journey are funny quips, like which

In paintings dating back to the 18th century, the Nayika (the heroine) can be seen with her Sakhi (her confidante). In ancient Tamil poetry, songs and dance forms such as Bharatanatyam, the cherished Sakhi – the friend, accomplice, and at times, the witness – is a catalyst for the heroine to wrestle with and ultimately to accept her truth. It is thus fitting that in Nithya Nagarajan and Liv Satchell’s Nayika: A Dancing Girl, we meet our heroine (Vaishnavi Suryaprakash – Counting and Cracking) as she is reconnecting with her childhood best friend. Beginning with a meeting over over-priced entrees in Sydney, the story explores bursts of the forgotten joy and sorrow the pair shared in Chennai, India, over four formative years as our heroine learned about love, met a boy, began a relationship and ultimately escaped its perils with her own scars. Satchell and Nagarajan’s script is moving, humorous and sensitive in its exploration of heartbreak and trauma. With dramaturgy support from Nick Enright Prize winner S Shakthidaran (the creator of critically acclaimed works Counting and Cracking and The Jungle and the Sea), Satchell and Nagarajan’s script is moving, humorous and sensitive in its exploration of heartbreak and trauma. As the only actor on stage, Suryaprakash is a captivating performer – she utilises accents effectively to indicate shifts in time and place, and is infinitely expressive as a smitten 13-year-old, finding the giddy exasperation of love with ease.  On the violin

Those of us who were born during or after the early ’90s often forget that it hasn’t been that long since women were given the right to bank accounts and the means to cultivate our independence. Just twenty years prior, the options for women to get ahead were often limited to the opportunities that a man (or rather, a husband) could provide her. It is this premise that pervades Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black’s fairly vacuous one-woman, one-act song cycle, Tell Me On A Sunday. With a modern-day lens, it is quickly apparent that this is a man’s point of view of a woman of the ’70s – but for young women today, perhaps this production from Hayes Theatre Company and Michelle Guthrie Presents is also a reminder of how far we have come. Initially, the show that is now Tell Me On A Sunday was paired with a ballet and debuted on the West End in 1982 as a show titled “Song and Dance”. The performance made Marti Webb a household name, and the adaptation for Broadway earned her successor Bernadette Peters her first Tony Award. This formula suggests that much of the show’s success teeters on the charisma and vocal proficiency of the sole lead performer. Although often touted as perhaps Lloyd Webber’s best work musically, the show has retained the DNA of an unfinished, discarded manuscript that even an other-worldly talent cannot entirely overcome. This isn’t Hamilton’s New York where you can “be a new man”, or the “centre of the universe” described in Rent. Erin Clare (9 to 5, A Little

Few musical references are as iconic as those from Grease. A simple "rama lama lama" or "a wop ba-ba lu-bop a wop bam boom!" may invoke joyful nostalgia, transporting you back to the first time you witnessed John Travolta's gyrating hips or “our” Olivia Newton-John's sweet Sandy smile. For me, it takes me back to my own high school musical experience. With my Pink Lady jacket and Pink Lady sunglasses, the Grease stage is where I first forged my life-long love affair with musical theatre and the passionate community that came with it. That is what musicals are forged on: passion – and this production of Grease: the Musical at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre has an infectious amount of it. Before the 1978 film adaptation cemented Grease’s place in the global pop culture consciousness, this show set in the working-class youth subculture of 1950s Chicago was first staged in 1971. Like any rebellious teen tale, Grease tapped into the angst of young people of the time; it had a '50s style and a '70s attitude. Everyone wanted to be as cool as Kenickie (played here with delectable zeal by Keanu Gonzalez, who has also appeared in Hamilton and West Side Story), as bold as Rizzo (the eye-catching triple threat Mackenzie Dunn, as seen in Hairspray), or as sweet as the nervous Doody (Tom Davis). There were definitely elements of my high school production that built my confidence, brought me out of my shell, and changed my perspective – but the plot wasn't one of them. The musical numbers were jo

Whether arriving via a luxurious water taxi or taking a leisurely stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens, the journey to Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour is as picturesque as the setting itself. Each year, a vibrant theatrical hub emerges, complete with a five-storey pop-up bar and dining venue with a variety of offerings, ranging from cheerful pizzas, hotdogs and pies to decadent three-course feasts. This annual event embodies the very essence of spectacle, and this year's performance of West Side Story (which makes an anticipated return to Mrs Macquries Chair after its 2019 debut) wows us while compelling us to wrestle with the stark relevance of its themes, both to Australia’s own history and the turf wars at play globally. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical masterpiece West Side Story debuted on Broadway in 1957 and most recently got the Hollywood treatment by Steven Speilberg, to seven Oscar nominations. It’s a modern take on Shakepeare’s well-known tale of star crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, set in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, during the 1950s. The Jets, a gang of All-American boys, are in a turf war with the Sharks, the new Puerto Rican immigrants on the block. When Maria (Nina Korbe) – the sister of the Sharks’ leader, Bernardo (Manuel Stark Santos) – and Tony (Billy Bourchier), a former Jet, lock eyes at the local dance, the rivalries escalate. You might assume that the open-air ambiance would diminish the impact of the ove

A chance meeting, an accident, a job offer, a split-second judgement – we make decisions every day that have the potential to change the course of our lives. In The Swell, which debuted at the UK’s Orange Tree Theatre in 2023, award-winning playwright Isley Lynn expertly navigates the audience through a queer love triangle spanning 30 years and the decisions that change three lives forever. It comes to Australia’s last remaining pub theatre at The Old Fitz courtesy of Akimbo + Co.  The play jumps between the past – where we see young Annie (Jessical Bell of The Wasp and Consent) introduce her new fiance Bel (Alexandra Keddie) to her childhood friend Flo (Monique Salle of The Lovers and The Deb) – and the present day, where the trio is played by Fiona Press, Katherine Hopwood Poulsen and Deborah Jones. Salle’s Flo is a dynamic, care-free surfer who has seen the world. Over time, she inspires the anxious and sheltered Bel to consider how she might live her life differently – this sets off a series of life-changing betrayals and secrets, which are slowly unveiled.  For the twist alone, this show is definitely worth your time! Lynn’s script compassionately paints complex and flawed female characters across two different stages of life. These characters express layered experiences of love, joy, betrayal, pain, anxiety, embarrassment, and gracious acceptance – and this cast of actors give every moment its justice. However, the audience’s ability to engage with these uninhibited an

We are all struggling with something. Sometimes the struggle is external, and sometimes it’s our own selves that we battle daily. Often, the only solace we find is in knowing that others are also grappling with something. In recent years, the internet has become a place where anyone can find their community, or at least a space to anonymously offload. There are hundreds of blogs and Reddit threads where countless people seek advice on everything from recovering from grief to the best cities to visit in Spain. The age-old saying "you never know what someone else is going through" is vividly portrayed in the stage adaptation of Cheryl Strayed's popular book, Tiny Beautiful Things, created by Nia Vardalos (of My Big Fat Greek Wedding fame). The book (full title Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar) is a compilation of entries from the anonymous advice column  Strayed wrote under the pseudonym Sugar for the online literary magazine The Rumpus from 2010 to 2012, which garnered a cult following. The play's strength lies in moments where the storytelling shifts to focus on living through the unthinkable... eliciting tears from many in the audience. Premiering off-Broadway at The Public Theatre in December 2016, the play caught audiences’ attention due to Strayed's popularity from the film adaptation of her 2012 memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, produced by Reese Witherspoon, and directed by Thomas Kail (of Hamilton fame). It playe

It starts with a request to take off your shoes, a custom that is common in many cultures in the Asian subcontinent, especially before entering someone’s home. The Lennox Studio at Parramatta’s Riverside Theatres has been transformed into Melbourne-based Palestinian artist Aseel Tayah’s home – two elongated digital screens frame a kitchen benchtop, on which sits the ingredients to make the aromatic dish known as Maqluba (in Arabic it translates to “upside-down”).  In front of the bench are four rows of long, set tables with cushioned floor seating. As we enter, the smells from the olives, zaatar, Jerusalem bread and rummaniyeh (a brown lentil stew) are overwhelming our senses. It is from this place of home, accompanied by two talented friends – Meena Shamaly on the guitar and Camille El Feghali on the Qanun (an Arabic string instrument) and the Arabian flute – that Tayah begins her story.  She sings of the olive trees that used to flank her home in Gaza, her mum’s bread, the zaatar and soft cheese that kept them warm in the winter. She tells stories of the friendships formed over bread and salt. There is a trepidation in her storytelling, a quivering lip that enters every planned story, a consequence of the news she must reckon with daily. She doesn’t ignore it, she says her inner thoughts out loud: “Do I tell you of the beauty of my culture like I planned? How can I do that when every day it is being destroyed?”  There is no preaching here, no sides, just the reality and the

Australia’s colonial history is so vast and poorly documented that we are constantly uncovering lost stories. One such story is about the people of the Saltwater Country in the west Kimberley. For thousands of years, the region’s First Nations community collected and engraved pearl shells for ceremony. They represented the creative energy of the Dreaming. When the pearling industry of the north was established in the early 19th century, an influx of Malay workers brought in to man the boats changed the community of Broome forever.  In the world-premiere of Mutiara, a trio of co-choreographers and performers – Dalisa Pigram (from Broome) of Indigenous intercultural dance theatre company Marrugeku, along with Soultari Amin Farid and Zee Zunnur (both from Singapore) – have worked together with visual artist Abdul-Rahman Abdullah and composer Safuan Johari.  Marrugeku’s task-based improvisational practice captures the lost histories of Broome’s pearl divers. Through movement, video projections and spoken word in various languages, the dancers take the audience on a journey informed by grandfather and ex-pearl diver Ahmat Bin Fadal’s lived experience (who is also a collaborator on this performance).  Ethereal lighting by Kelsey Lee mimics the glow of the sun shining through to the ocean floor, highlighting a mound of pearl shells on the stage and a collection of long ropes that hang from the centre of the ceiling. Projected onto the ropes is video footage of the ocean and the lugg