The best shows to see in Sydney this month

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...

Many of us try not to think about death too much. Even if it is discussed or thought about, it’s considered in the abstract – a distant experience we will deal with someday, maybe later. From beloved Australian novelist Helen Garner, The Spare Room brings the later to now in an unflinchingly raw and brutal confrontation with death. Adapted and directed by Belvoir St Theatre’s artistic director Eamon Flack (Counting and Cracking), these heavy themes are carried with compassion, humour and drama in an evocative performance that lingers long after the final moment.  After going through multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, Nicola (Elizabeth Alexander) decides to stay with her old friend Helen (Judy Davis) in Melbourne for three weeks while she undertakes an alternative cancer treatment. From Vitamin C-infused IV drips to sitting naked in “ozone saunas”, these alternative therapies claim to destroy cancer much in the same manner an octopus can break rocks. (Their words, not mine.) The three weeks force both Nicola and Helen to go beyond the platitudes and formalities, and to confront the raw and infuriating experience of both having a terminal illness, and supporting a loved one through it. a provocative portrayal of the communal experience of death  The play commences with a profound silence, held by Helen for a moment longer than comfortable. Davis’s command and authority are masterfully established in this stillness, and do not falter for the rest of the...

Mother-daughter relationships can be complicated even under the best of circumstances. When you add adoption, a language barrier, and years of estrangement into the mix – well, you get more baggage than a flight from Sydney to Seoul.  You may be familiar with Michelle Lim Davidson from both the stage (The Feather in the Web) and screen (The Newsreader, Utopia, Play School). In Koreaboo, her moving playwriting debut presented by Griffin Theatre Company in association with Belvoir St Theatre, Davidson draws on her own life to investigate the complexities of intercountry adoption, and the precarious experience shared by many adopted children – living caught between two very different cultures, but feeling like they belong to neither.  Davidson plays Hannah, a 30-something-year-old woman who was adopted from Korea as a baby and grew up in Newcastle. After a break-up, she travels to Korea to spend time with her biological mother, Umma (Heather Jeong). Hannah’s plan is to spend time getting to know the woman whose love she’s longed for since before she can remember. She offers to help Umma at the family’s convenience mart, and Umma reluctantly agrees. It’s not until they discover a shared love of K-pop and performing that Umma’s walls start falling down, and Hannah really gets to know her Sex-and-the-City-quoting, Turtle-Chip-eating Umma.  Jeong portrays the cheeky, sassy, larger-than-life Umma with apparent ease, and her command of movement, language and voice is a strong...

There are some stories that feel eternally relevant. Set in ancient Rome, and written more than 400 years ago, the brutal, volatile, ego-driven politics on display in Coriolanus seem to cut like a blade close to the throat of our own century and civilization. This is the second time in Bell Shakespeare’s history the company has mounted Shakespeare’s final tragedy, and director Peter Evans marshals an impressive, vigorous and robust undertaking of the play’s weighted themes. He’s helped by an excellent ensemble and a monumental lead in Hazem Shammas. We, the theatre-going people, are also involved in the play’s politics from the start. Down the subtly lit hall of the Neilson Nutshell, in a small yet meaningful simulation of the class divide, the audience is split down an arbitrary and unbreachable line. Those seated on one side of the theatre are dubbed ‘patricians’ (the contemptuous ruling classes, whom costume designer Ella Butler has in charcoal suits and creamy loose-fitting garments); the other side are the ‘plebeians’ (who are hungry, angry, and fomenting rebellion). It is between these two groups and the Senate that the arrogant warrior Coriolanus becomes embroiled when he returns bloodied and victorious from war with the Volsces, the state’s enemy neighbours, and is offered the honourable role of consul.  Volumnia – a fiercely exceptional Brigid Zengeni, in her Bell Shakespeare debut, who gloats of her son’s many stab wounds with a sick adoring pride – would love...

I have reviewed many shows at the Sydney Opera House, and never – never – before have I been so utterly flabbergasted at the lack of scrutiny and professionalism upheld by a creative team in the running of a production.  For starters, the immense buzz in the the Drama Theatre’s foyer was squashed before the audience had even entered the stalls, as a sign informed us that Hollywood star Tom Cruise would in fact not be appearing at this performance of The Murder at Haversham Manor. This was swiftly followed by the show’s operator, Trevor (Edmund (Eds) Eramiha), wandering up and down the aisles, followed in tow by the stage manager Annie (Olivia Charalambous) as they asked us, the audience, if we had seen a lost dog, Winston, who it appeared was to be a character in the show. Completely unprofessional! After this was resolved, the director of the The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society greeted us all, ensuring that this production would not follow the mishaps in their previous works, and that they finally have funding and a script that suits their society. It would not be another low budget production (such as their summer season of James, where is your Peach?) and that they do have a full cast, as to avoid a repeat of the debacle of their most recent musical, Cat. The cracks that began to appear even before the curtain lifted on The Murder at Haversham Manor only continued to widen as the show played on, the whole evening building up into a fiasco of disastrous heights – and,...

On my seven-month-old baby’s bookshelf sits a brightly illustrated children’s book about Marie Curie. Its pages celebrate her love of science, her marriage to physicist Pierre Curie, and her status as the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. These are the facts most often recited, but women are rarely one-dimensional. Alongside moments of triumph, often lie moments of despair and self-doubt. It is one of those lesser-known chapters that Lauren Gunderson explores in The Half-Life of Marie Curie, a play that premiered off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre in 2019, and was later released as an audio drama on the Audible platform. The play now makes its Australian premiere at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre under the direction of Liesel Badorrek (The Glass Menagerie). Gunderson, frequently referred to as “the most produced living playwright in America”, has a signature formula across her 20-plus plays: identify a compelling duo, hone in on a pivotal historical moment, inject sharp, rhythmic dialogue, and keep it snappy – 90 minutes or less. The result is a biographical vignette interspersed with theatrical poetry. The plays often just recount history – however, at its best, her formula  can thrillingly heighten a core emotional conflict. In this case, it’s the friendship between Marie Curie and Hertha Ayrton, and the impact these women had on each other. Though often relegated to a footnote in Curie’s story, here Ayrton commands center stage... The narrative begins at Curie’s...