Sydney theatre latest reviews

The nicest kids in town have arrived, with the latest Australian production of Hairspray grapevining onto the Sydney Lyric stage after opening in Melbourne. There’s no denying it: this show will whip you up in a dizzying cloud of pseudo-retro nostalgia and place you back down on Earth with a Teen Queen’s winning smile affixed on your face. With a fun and colourful set, strong performances, high camp comedy (with a few moments of pathos thrown in), and toe-tapping songs that’ll have you belting along, this direct-from-Broadway production will leave you with a sugar high higher than the highest beehive ‘do.  As our Melbourne reviewer put it last year, all the dance numbers are “flawlessly executed, with a level of energy that is simultaneously infectious and tiring to watch”. Newcomer Carmel Rodrigues makes her professional debut as Tracy Turnblad, the socially outcast, dance-loving teenager coming of age in 1962 Baltimore as the fight for racial integration is heating up, whose ultimate dream is to dance on The Corny Collins Show. (In a full-circle moment, the Sydney-raised 23-year-old actually played Tracy in her high school production of Hairspray.) There’s never a moment where we’re not rooting for Rodrigues as she brims with Turnblad’s ceaseless optimism, pursuit of social justice and doe-eyed lust for teen heartthrob Link Larkin (Sean Johnston).  A swathe of well-known names crowds the posters spruiking this production. Todd McKenney plays Tracy's doddering, joke-store-ru

Bell Shakespeare brings us a minimalist, sly, and refreshingly funny take on the Scottish play with their latest production, which sees Hazem Shammas (The Twelve, Safe Harbour) as Macbeth and Jessica Tovey (The Miser, The Merchant of Venice) as Lady Macbeth, killing and scheming their way to the top of the feudal heap in a medieval Scotland that looks a lot like Great Britain in the aftermath of World War I. Soldiers wear greatcoats instead of armour, and sport rifles rather than swords. Nobles and courtiers swan about in sharp-cut dinner jackets, while Tovey’s Lady Macbeth greets us in a stunning ivory dress that director (and Bell artistic director) Peter Evans and designer Anna Tregloan somehow resist smearing with blood as the murderous action of the play unfolds. Modern productions of Shakespeare sometimes feel like a game of Mad Libs as theatre makers strive for a fresh take on the Bard’s well-worn works – “It’s Othello set in a diner in the 1950s!” – but a careful selection of setting and aesthetic can contextualise the narrative wonderfully. Here, the post-war setting is a nice touch, reminding us of both the strife that precedes the story being told as well as  the greater tragedies to come – Macbeth’s downfall looms in the future like World War II did after the Treaty of Versailles.  Hazem Shammas' brilliant turn as Macbeth is underpinned by a rueful gallows humour But in an interesting take on the material, Evans and his team choose to emphasise the supernatural el

Tooth and Sinew are the local theatre world’s trailblazers of explosively creative derangement. Doomsday clown prophets with a gift for the cleverly profane, their sick genius perverts the tropes of children’s entertainment to tell end-of-world stories about chaos, madness, stupidity and – as in Apocka-wocka-lockalypse – puppets getting tube-fed a full bottle of urine.  Presented like Play School in psychopath mode, and running in the tiny hothouse of Meraki Arts Bar’s third floor theatre, Richard Hilliar’s play is pegged as the “spiritual sequel” to the lurid and majestic grotesquerie that was Ubu – a clownish tale of idiotic power-squabblers in a society on the brink of total collapse. In Apocka, we’re well past the brink: beyond the heavy locked door of a bunker called ‘Haven’, located somewhere in the deadlands of Parramatta, there are only dust storms, marauding tribes and death.  Hilliar’s plays really lean into nightmarish excess and puerility – simultaneously speaking to our little kiddy brains and our primitive, lecherous id Miss Melissa (a wonderfully unhinged Nicole Wineberg) is our surviving human: an overalls-wearing woman of bright smiles and the honey-toned coo of a preschool teacher. Founder of Haven, she awaits the return of the ‘Last Chance Plane’ – a mythical aircraft which will find them and take them away to wherever the rich people went when the world began to burn. Schnerk, Titzi, Blerkina and Gorbo are our surviving monsters (puppets made by Ash Bell,

Esse feels like a chair. What type of chair? A folding chair.  Her sister and brother-in-law do not understand it when she tells them over lunch. If she knew they were going to pay for lunch, she would have ordered the steak instead of her ‘tiny’ meal. The last few weeks of her life have been quite haphazard – she’s lost her job, her girlfriend left her, and she’s become obsessed with the news – but it’s alright, because the internet told her she’s a Ravenclaw. An Australian premiere from Red Line Productions, Collapsible is an existential meditation on what it means to live in a world that is determined to appear put together when it is actually falling apart. Written in 2019, Margaret Perry’s monologue explores modern day anxiety and dissociation through the journey of Esse (Janet Anderson) as she prepares for job interviews. Janet Anderson’s command of expression is enthralling Having suddenly no sense of who she is, Esse starts asking everyone she knows how they would describe her. She clings to the list of words like they are affirmations: smart, bubbly, shy, productive, feet firmly planted on the ground. Her experience is contrasted to that of her family and friends, who all seem to be able to carry on climbing the corporate ladder, building their nuclear families and curating outward perfection while the world continues to burn.  The post-lockdown theatre world has seen a rise in the one-person show, and in many ways, this show might suffer for that, as it is compared

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety,” goes the Shakespeare line about Cleopatra, and it’s a timely reminder that ageism and putting older women into narrow boxes is not on. Ever. With that in mind, performer Jonny Hawkins delivers Maureen: Harbinger of Death, co-conceived and directed by Nell Ranney. In this minimalistic one-person show, Hawkins transforms into the titular Maureen, a self-described ‘working class glamour queen’ inspired by the performer’s late friend, with a cobbled web of tidbits borrowed from other influential and ferocious women.  An intimate celebration of matriarchal power, this is one swan-song you won’t want to miss Hawkins is utterly bewitching as Maureen. Anyone partial to a boogie amongst Sydney’s queer party scene may recognise Hawkins as one half of DJ duo the (recently retired) Dollar Bin Darlings, but here the outlandishness is pared back for a contemplative performance of a woman in her eighties. Their portrayal of Maureen is clearly loving, and doesn’t hold back where you’d bet Maureen wouldn’t either. The character is imbued with that delightfully wicked ‘no fucks given’ attitude that one often finds in people who’ve reached a certain vintage. But above all, she believes in kindness over politeness – and you’ll leave with this message close to your chest, along with a trinket trove of one-liners and excellent advice from a gal who has seen and done everything.  A simple set hung with a luxe draping of velvet (desig