Our latest Sydney theatre reviews

As I’m on my way to Sydney's Capitol Theatre for the new Australian production of The Book of Mormon, my friend tells me it’s the very first musical a lot of people see. Created by South Park duo Trey Parker and Matt Stone (with Robert Lopez), the show’s reputation for extremely irreverent jabs at religion draws a non-traditional theatre crowd. What I now realise my friend didn’t mean was, “it’s often the first musical kids see”. When I say the musical is extremely irreverent, I mean it. The humour is crass, verging on grotesque (some things I wouldn’t dare repeat). So it’s probably questionable that I’ve brought along my 13-year-old son with me. That said, he loves it.  Some of the humour is classic teen boy (i.e. a regular exclamation from one of the Ugandan characters that he has “maggots in my scrotum”). Very South Park. My son laughs loudly with the rest of the audience – and when the jokes go too far, he cringes, glancing around with a “should I be laughing at this?” look. Although the shock value is high, it’s nice seeing a Gen Alpha-ite who’s been raised on Youtube and other screen-based entertainment bopping along in his seat to the song and dance of a stage show.    What’s the premise of The Book of Mormon? The Book of Mormon tells the story of two young Mormon missionaries sent to a small village in Uganda. Although the story centres on Mormonism, Parker and Stone have been known to refer to the show as an “atheist’s love letter to religion” – a wink and a jab...

In musical theatre circles, Cats is the show that everyone loves to hate, dismissing it as “weird” and “uncool”. So let me begin this review by stating that I love Cats. I listened to the cast recording over and over as a child, I met my best friend on a Cats mailing list (remember those?) when I was sixteen, and there's probably still some old Cats fanfiction floating around out there that I wrote in my teens. This much maligned show doesn't deserve the hate it gets.  When Cats was first performed in the early 1980s, it was hailed as groundbreaking, bridging the gap between concept musicals and mega musicals in a way no show had done before. It won both Olivier and Tony awards for best musical, and ran for decades on the West End and Broadway. These days, it’s viewed more as a “guilty pleasure” – the show you secretly enjoy but are supposed to pretend you don’t, lest you be seen as uncultured. But why? Concept musicals based around a theme rather than a traditional narrative have existed since the 1950s, with notable examples including Cabaret, Hair and Company. Dance-heavy musicals are also not a unique concept. Cats isn't even the only show to combine these two elements. But while shows like A Chorus Line and Pippin are hailed as iconic, Cats – which is essentially A Chorus Line with tails – is not shown the same love.  Cats may not be too heavy on the plot, but it’s a show for people who love the little details Much of the criticism surrounding Cats comes from wanting...

This raucous show could be the closest you’ll get to spending a whirlwind evening inside an extravagant Baz Luhrmann flick. Taking over The Studio in the belly of the Sydney Opera House, Gatsby at the Green Light is a sauced-up variety show that transports audiences into a pop-up, vintage-inspired night club (complete with a functional bar). Think of this production as a sort of live concept album – featuring a smorgasboard of circus acts, top-shelf burlesque, evocative live singing, and impressive aerial artistry – with the rare art of hair-hanging to boot.  Gatsby cherry-picks from the glitz and glamour of one of Jay Gatsby’s famous parties, remixes it, and serves it up as an escapist fantasy where the roaring ’20s meets the 2020s. In doing so, this show masters the timeless allure of a particular niche of spectacle: watching profusely talented and beautiful people performing seriously difficult tricks and dangling precariously in the air (before elegantly dismounting with a brazen wink). ARIA-nominated singer Odette is a stand out member of the ensemble, the earthy and mystical vocal quality of the siren of the Inner West providing a soulful connective thread to the mixed bag of acts. Odette collaborated with musical director Kim Moyes (best known as one-half of iconic Australian electronic duo The Presets) on an original song for the production – although, it’s her covers of hit songs that will continue to play on repeat in your mind (her audacious take on ‘Money...