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The Eisteddfod Old Fitz Theatre In 2024 Lally Katz emerged from the Melbourne indie theatre scene to become one of Australia’s hottest playwrights.  Two works indelibly planted in our collective theatre memories from that time are Stuck Pigs Squealing’s “The Black Swan of Trespass” by Lally Katz and Chris Kohn followed by Katz's “The Eisteddfod”. Both of which played in the Belvoir downstairs space. At the time the plays were hailed as unconventional, raw, poetic works that explored human nature at its most “difficult, comical and depraved” (Alison Croggon).  Moving forward by two decades Ziggy Resnick and her team of theatrical adventurers revisit this work anew.  “The Eisteddfod” explores – through the frame of childhood – themes of loss, dependency, and grief.  Orphaned young by a “pruning accident” Gerture (Fraser Crane) and Abalone (Ziggy Resnik) are living a half-life between childhood and adulthood.  They have become acrophobic and together create fantasy lives ranging from the banal to absurd. They rehearse a performance of Macbeth for the local Eisteddfod, an undertaking Abalone has made unsuccessful attempts at winning since childhood. He now invites his sister to participate, to draw her back from a parallel world in which she is an imaginary schoolteacher, and a place she is spending more and more time, to the exclusion of Abalone. The events of this play all exist in a highly tenuous relationship to reality as the siblings play out ‘scenes’ as they wish or imagine their lives may have happened. But these are characters whose lives have never actually ‘happened’. They build worlds within worlds, manufacturing a space of destruction and desire, but without any tangible counterpart in the real world. Abalone plays Gerture’s abusive boyfriend, Ian. Gerture plays ‘Mother’ to the needy Abalone, and they play their parents for one another to imagine, or even remember, how their parent’s relationship may have looked. Over the course of the play, Gerture disappears further into her own imaginary ‘school’ world, leaving the despairing and dominant Abalone behind and it becomes apparent that Gerture has outgrown the imaginary worlds played out in their shared bedroom. The play is unsettling to say the least and a kind of bleakness as we hear Shakespeare’s lines as a kind of pervasive subtext:"Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, / Who struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And is heard no more. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound fury, / Signifying nothing." There’s also a nod to Chekhov as the prize for winning the Eisteddfod is a trip to Moscow. Certainly, we feel that Chekhovian bittersweetness threaded throughout the play, but I would never call it nostalgic. I think the play is more savage than this. Co-directors Miranda Middleton and Jessica Bell never really succeed in creating the suffocation in terms of living space or relationship.  Playing in all corners of the Old Fitz stage (albeit on the set of “Isolde and Tristan”) there is a generous freedom for the two players.  It’s certainly lively and the production’s strength is the glee with which actors embrace their roles and opportunities to play to their strengths. The work straddles melodrama, escapism, clowning, realism and absurdist suffering.... The audience responded with laughs aplenty.  Ziggy Resnick proves once again they are an actor in search of a challenge – the sheer technical skill, imagination, daring and invention are to be applauded. Is there anything they cannot do?  The performance is played at 10+ all night but it fits the style of this production. Fraser Crane impresses with their light touch and deep understanding of their role.  The now ubiquitous audition speech which begins ‘I’m so sad.  But not too sad to talk about it.”  is masterful. I was amused by the antics of the characters.  I was moved by the final scene.  Announced as “Scene 13” Gerture climbs up an onstage mast and from on high sprinkles torn white paper as snow.  Gerture’s pain drives this narrative, and it is through her pain that she created a redemptive act to free her from the siblings claustrophobic bedroom and Abalone’s control.  She (imaginatively at least) arrives in Moscow. There are many images that stay with me since the show made its Sydney debut in 2007. I now have a new image to add to that storehouse. Kate Gaul (Image supplied)

Shook Substation at QTOPIA Instead of GCSEs, Cain, Riyad and Jonjo got sentences. Locked up in a young offender institution, they trade sweets, chat shit, kill time – and await fatherhood. Grace's job is to turn these teenagers into parents, ready to take charge of their futures. But can they grow up quickly enough to escape the system? Winner of the 2019 Papatango New Writing Prize, Samuel Bailey's “Shook” – we are told “is a tender and honest play examining the young men society shuts away.” The play arrives in Sydney via new company, Lost Thought, directed by Emma Whitehouse. The play has a kind of hyper realistic energy, and this follows through in the directing. At 100 minutes (no interval) we really need something to care about.  The outcome of the plot is not so unexpected but the attention to detail in the directing is honourable. Played with “authentic” regional UK accents the text can be – at times – extremely difficult to understand.  But there is enough going on physically for us to get the gist.  The production had a last-minute change of venue to the Substation and this under street level and intimate room is ideal for a drama which literally takes place in a locked room. It’s a run-down classroom in a young offender’s institution where the guys can learn some life skills before returning to the outside world. I suspect the Substation space is best used more site specifically. For this production the intervention of a canvas wall and flimsy door frame don’t do many favours to an otherwise robust piece of work.  The challenge will always be to find a solution to the dramatic needs of a play in any given space – but hey, that’s our job as creatives. Louis Regan plays the hyperactive and unpredictable Cain with a mania beloved by young actors. There’s not a lot of variation in the performance but these banged up lads aren’t exactly into nuance. Cain is an illiterate troublemaker who devours sweets with the aggression he spews out on others.  Malek Domkoc gives a striking performance as Riyad – ex gang member with a brain who is really giving rehabilitation a go. Isaac Harley an introverted and dog loving Jonjo neatly balances his inner demons with startling vulnerability. I didn’t buy the over wrought final moment in this production. This guy is vicious underneath and how successful is the ‘system” anyway? Isn’t the point of the play that these guys get “shook” and revert to type? Edyll Ismail is stunning in her portrayal of courage under pressure as Grace, the social worker who comes to the lockup to show these young fathers how to care for an infant. The playwright gives the actors plenty to work with.  It’s not particularly theatrical and it’s meant to be played with a fourth wall.  Traditional, little poetry, predictable world view.  It’s a sad story unfolding in a concrete bunker in shades of grey. Plenty of things to think about in terms of the despairing predicament of incarcerated youth anywhere. The joy in this production is encountering the new talents on and off the stage, definitely some names to watch. Review by Kate Gaul I(mage Becky Mathews)

Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life, Zoë Coombs Marr The Grand Electric Zoë Coombs Marr received a Melbourne Comedy Festival award in 2016 for “Trigger Warning,” the show that presented her in meta-drag as a retrograde male comic named “Dave” to call-out the disparate standards for men in comedy. We thank her from making intersectional feminism funny!  Her 2018 show presented Marr as herself while still playfully poking fun at the conventions of stand-up and specials themselves, “Bossy Bottom”, which you can catch on ABC iView – absolute comic gold! Zoë is also the creator, writer, and host of “Queerstralia” – a must see into the untold LGBTQIA+ history of Australia (also on ABC iView). And there’s lots, lots more … Zoe Coombs Marr has always included a lot of personal material in her work and “Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life” takes autobiographical content to the next level. Its’s implausibly ridiculous as comedy meets life’s challenges, meets planning, and then meets us via a projected Miro Board and then Excel Spreadsheet of a life’s worth of events. Knowing chuckles or groans from audience depending on digital competency.  Coombs Marr tells us that she decided to divide her life up into seven-year increments to catalogue her jokes and battle depression and she’s ready to tell us about every single thing in her whole entire life. Over the course of the hour, we kind of get to suggest where the banter might go – that we maybe wandering freely through someone’s past - her long-term relationship, street pizza, sandwiches, a frog in a toilet, a random make-out session at the Imperial, an uncontrolled pee in Adelaide. I got the impression that some of the material may be different every show as Zoë opens up about her life –and be warned – it’s not all roses.  Some of it is dark and details of suicide ideation might not be everyone’s idea of a great night out.  But she’s still here and we are laughing, and she is laughing with us. The gender identity content is more palatable if well-worn and jokes about comedian and ADHD draw snorts and hoots. Of course, no one sitting past the front row can actually read the spreadsheet, but we love the idea. If the show is about anything it could be memory – what do we recall of our lives, how to we recall it? What I love about Coombs Marr is that amongst all the absurdities there is a genuinely brainy thread coursing through the work.  The way she wraps shows is effortless and classic. “Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life” feels shambolic and it is but we go somewhere and love that someone else can make sense of their world. “Mind melting” and “Meta” as all the reviews say. This show will be in Edinburgh this year – go see it! Kate Gaul (Image: Supplied)

Nayika A Dancing Girl நாயிகா – ஒரு நாட்டியப் பெண் Belvoir Written and directed by Nithya Nagarajan and Liv Satchell, Nayika a Dancing Girl tells a story of recovery and triumph, through an confluence of western story telling conventions and the Indian classical Bharatanatyam dance – Bha (Bhavam: expression)-Ra (Ragam: song)-Tha(Thalam: rhythm)-natyam(dance) –  which is used to express major plot points and emotional highs/lows of the story. Vaishnavi Suryaprakash is at the centre of this performance – accompanied by stunning live music from Marco Cher-Gibard and Bhairavi Raman. She narrates her coming-of-age story through her present identity as an adult in Australia and her early teenage experiences of violence in her first relationship in Chennai. Hidden memories are triggered by an unexpected visit from a friend in Sydney. As a teenager there is a boy with whom she shares stolen glances. There are her dance classes where the guru teaches her about the different types of heroines in Indian mythology. Nayika translates as heroine, specifically one of the eight types of romantic heroine described in an ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts. The play weaves connections between Suryaprakashm, the play’s protagonist (a dancing girl), and these mythic heroines. Towards the end of the work, our protagonist asks: where is the “overwhelmed” heroine – the heroine who shows us how to deal with a dangerous lover? The dance guru tells her that to face her overwhelming feelings she must embrace her power, and real power comes with control over one’s body and one’s emotions. The story moves from scenes of teenage girls, relationships, and romance to a reclaiming her voice (of sorts) and her power after having become a victim to partner abuse. “A Dancing Girl” identifies this power as the missing ninth heroine of Bharatanatyam: a heroine who can reclaim control of time, space, and body.  With violence against women all too recently declared a national crisis by our Prime Minister, it is important to share and understand stories of gendered and domestic abuse, in addition to the nuance of experiences amongst the South Asian diaspora. The production is stylish.  Set design is shared between this and “Lose to Win” and is designed by Keerthi Subramanyam.  The string backdrop reveals a musician’s platform. Consummate designer Morgan Moroney lights the stage with immense allure and provides incredible shifts between moments in the story and supports the use of space in the performance of both text and dance.  Music, dance, and text are woven together with the design elements with sophistication. The performance is intimate, magnetic, and focussed. This is not an easy story to warm to.  Empathy is possible but there’s something over-polite in the writing that distances.  It may be a cultural respect that is employed or a fear of damaging the febrile memories on which the work is based. Playing at Belvoir in the downstairs space is another South Asian work, Aurat Raj. Supporting these rich stories is a refreshing programming direction for the theatre.  Long may it continue. Kate Gaul (Image Brett Boardman)

Misery Loves Company   KXT Legit Theatre Co present this new black comedy by emerging writer Isabella Reid (Directed by Mathew Lee).  Ten actors pour into a suburban Northern Irish room in 1977 to mourn the passing of Daphne, beloved mother to Jackie, daughter to George and sister to Dolores and Henry. Daphne is remembered for a keen passion for swing-dancing, a mighty collection of brooches and a new venture into lesbianism. Under the shadow of Irish Troubles, a family mourns. The production begins well with a music chorus.  The spirited cast who sings and play instruments is a delight. Clare Hennesey impresses as composer and sound designer. Her work gives us place and emotional temperature. It’s a real cut above. The colours and textures of designer Ruby Jenkins are just right and point to the real care that has taken this play from a small idea of a play to this full scale 70-minute event.   Comedy is hard and Reid can certainly write a good joke. Mostly the cast deliver the jokes – a combination of character and timing. It occasionally feels as if everyone has watched too may eps of “Derry Girls” to learn the accent and the dry comic timing intended in a piece about life in the face of death.  The Northern Irish accent if delivered accurately would be impenetrable to us so some concession must be made in an Australian play. It is uneven here.   Impressive performances include Clay Crighton – a talented musician and actor and here plays a small child who drinks the whiskey infused cup of tea, with hilarious results; Mark Langham who plays Pa George who has dementia – it’s a beautifully written part and gives the play a potential transcendence; Teale Howie has fantastic comic chops (he plays the in-home carer); and for my money, Lincoln Elliot just doesn’t have enough to do – he’s a major talent. Overall, it’s a great ensemble. Director Mathew Lee has crafted a sparking event. It is tricky knowing who is who, but we roll with the antics and compare notes in the foyer. Father John is a character both in the drama and cast as the narrator of it. His functionality could assist ameliorating any confusion.   The play (at 70 minutes) is overly long.  It starts with a bang and the ends with the dreaded whimper.  The big joke which reveals itself at the end of the play doesn’t quite work because the audience know who/what is in the coffin well before the characters do. Why? What is beyond the literal meaning of the title “Misery Loves Company” – indicating that it is better to suffer the slings and arrows of life in a group/family/tribe than alone. What can the family elder who is slowly returning to s second childhood teach us?   It takes a village to develop and produce a new work. Hats off to Legit Theatre for getting this premiere to the stage.  This surely won’t be the last time we her from Isabelle Reid. See it!   Kate Gaul

Lose to Win Belvoir Charismatic, playful, and skilled performer Mandela Mathia presents his own gripping history.  This is a story of a young Sudanese man’s journey to escape war, personal tragedy, and hardship to his adopted life in Australia.  Resilience, the power of dreams and some straight up luck are all at play here. Mandela Mathia has since prospered since his arrival here as a refugee, trained at NIDA and can boast that this is his second show on the magical Belvoir stage. Essentially this is a solo performance, but Mandela is accompanied by Senegalese musician Yacou Mbya on a variety of percussion.  As the doors shut to the theatre Yacou drums on the landing and then down the aisle onto the stage. He warms up the audience as we engage in rhythmic clapping and hooting.  It’s fun.  Not the usual Belvoir fare!  This ebullience skilfully sets up the head-above-water optimism needed by refugees who face unimaginable adversity to survive. Mandela grew up in civil war-torn Sudan. His nicknames were those of guns: Kalashnikov, AK-47 and more. His father was shot fleeing to save his family. Mandela was only a small child then, but the loss of a father casts a shadow over his story. His mother drowned in an overcrowded boat while seeking food for her starving family. The stories are heart breaking.  North Sudan, shoe shining, odd jobs, Egypt all fill this overfull life of a young man. More searing moments occur after his arrival in Australia as Mandela tells of people preferring to stand on a bus than sit beside him or of Dutton’s infamous dog-whistling over Melbourne’s Sudanese gangs.  It is sobering to have this vital, engaged artist describe the trauma of bigotry and racism in Australians as he experienced first-hand.  The generosity of his humour, the interspersed dance and song and the sheer life force of this performance salves. Performed on a set by Keerthi Subramanyam (shared with another production “Nayika A Dancing Girl”) which is a quite beautiful string backdrop in front of which are the instruments and several suitcases and small hand props. Kate Baldwin lights this work with subtle changes.  Jessica Arthur directs and leans into the simplicity that makes this story shine. The partnership between director and actor began at NIDA and “Lose to Win” was originally presented at Old Fitz in 2022. It occasionally feels as if the production could do with more distinct changes in tone and delivery.  As a story of who we are and the rich make-up of our society this production more than makes up for any deficiency. Biography onstage is tough and can either become horribly confessional or trite. “Lose to Win” showcases Mandela and reminds us that we all meet forks in the road of life, and we can choose to be hateful and bitter of to embrace love as we find our way. The content and production is a breath of fresh air in the Belvoir season and bodes well for future programming and building new mainstage audiences. You could say “Lose to Win” is a win-win. Kate Gaul (Image Brett Boardman)

Fourteen Parramatta Riverside Theatres The latest work of FNQ company Shake & Stir Theatre Co is a “heart-warming coming of age tale”.  Adapted from the best- selling memoir by award-winning journalist Shannon Molloy, “Fourteen” is the inspirational true story of growing up gay in central Queensland. Adaptors Nelle Lee and Nick Skubij (with Shannon Molloy) have some great material to work with but sadly it’s a clumsy, overly long and what feels like a very early draft that has made its way into a production and now National Tour.  It’s important to tell and hear stories from the queer, rural and regional experience but this play is suffering in being too many things to too many people.  There is nothing wrong with presenting stereotypes onstage but the litany of bogan behaviour, the endless use of the f word in relation to gay boys, the unexplored relationships made for a disappointing experience. However, the campy stereotype of the way a gay boy talks, walks and dresses does need interrogation in a play like this.  If identity is used for comic relief and characters break into dance routines when the plot needs moving forward it’s just lazy work. The pre-publicity suggested the production may be a homage to the 1990s.  I lived through the ’90s and there wasn’t much I could connect with here.  Maybe there is a fear of being super specific. One person’s coming our story can resonate across time if it is particular and distinct.  But sadly, “Fourteen” is a generalised blur. With poor material on the page, it’s almost impossible for director Nick Skubij to make much of it on the stage.  The set design (Josh McIntosh) is monumental, traditional, filling the stage with an unimaginatively used revolve, on top of which is a double story set of literal spaces joined by endless stairs that pull in and out. Its ugly and can’t contribute to the magic that this story so desperately needs. The production is sluggish and laboured as the cast change costume endlessly and must “set up” the scenes before playing.  Like so many book adaptations the direct address from the central character Shannon is charming and suggests a more fluid production style. It’s overly long. There was no poetry in this version of “Fourteen”.  Just a nagging feeling that it’s all a bit unenlightened in its intentions. Conor Leach leads an impressive 7 person cast.  He is Shannon - the heart of the story told across time.  He begins the play as an adult on the evening of his wedding.  We are plunged into his awkward, dangerous, and confusing teenage years.  Leach is engaging and has genuine charisma. A talent to watch. Veteran Karen Crone is delightful as Shannon’s mum and created a character that deserves scenes of more depth and complexity. She plays a damned fine teen too. Any Ingram is incredible in her multiple roles as a heart-breaking bogan to the inspiring Rhonda.  It’s a real treat seeing these three actors on stage and more than made up for the shortcomings of the production. I couldn’t find a program at the theatre and the cast are not credited on the company website but as I say they are all impressive.  I wanted more from this stage adaptation of this important story. Kate Gaul (Photo by David Fell)

The President Ros Packer Theatre “The President” is a co-production between Ireland’s the Gate Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company. Directed by Irishman Tom Creed, this production is claimed to be the first English language production of Austrian playwright Thomas Bernhard’s play. Bernhard was born in the Netherlands in 1931 but was taken to Bavaria by his Austrian mother in 1937 during Nazi rule and had to join the Hitler Youth. He directly experienced Goebbels’ propaganda. It was first performed in 1975 and depicts his hatred of cowardly autocrats and their enablers, the abuses of power, the disdain and paranoia of privilege, and prophecies of the age of surveillance, corruption, and terrorism. In a small, unnamed country, there has been an assassination. However, the gunmen missed their intended targets, the President (Hugo Weaving), and the First Lady (Olwen Fouéré), killing instead a loyal bodyguard and the First Lady’s beloved dog. As a revolution brews right outside their front door, the First Lady sits with a mixture of hysterics, rage, and obsession. The President holds forth in a verbal tsunami of self-aggrandisement and vainglory, while his mistress, an actress, gambles his cash away in the blackjack room next door. The first half of the play is held by the formidable Olwen Fouéré.  Remembered from her impressive white-knuckle performance in “Riverrun” (STC, 2015). The First Lady is a self-absorbed, tormented character.  Preparing for the funeral of the late Colonel and with increasing anxiety around whether her son is or is not involved with the anarchists, she laments the demise of her beloved pooch and in insanely cruel to her near-silent maid (played heroically but Julie Forsythe). A commanding, narcissistic, haranguing egomaniac.  Played with admirable elegance and vitality both physically and verbally: this is a performance not to be missed.  The text is alienating with its endless repetitions but in the hands of Olwen Fouéré I appreciated her depiction of increasing detachment from reality.  I think the playwright and perhaps his translator here (Gitta Honegger) are nodding at Becket. Perhaps.  The scene is not without humour, but it proved hard going for many audience members and the house was decidedly less full after interval. The second half belongs to Hugo Weaving, and we know how he can command a stage. He shines, portraying the President with bottomless self-aggrandisement (“This country is too small for me”) and sleaze (he refers to his mistress, a third-rate actress, as “my child”). His paramour played by a subtle Kate Gilmore is an appropriate foil to the repulsive bigot she serves. Striking support is offered from from a mostly silent supporting cast Helmut Bakaitis, Danny Adcock, Alan Dukes, and Tony Cogin. Designer Elizabeth Gadsby creates a timeless setting (there is nothing to indicate this is 1975). It’s all very minimalist and contemporary with beautiful costumes.  Lighting by Sinead McKenna does its job during the scenes and becomes pulsating and flickers during the long curtain-down scene changes.  All of this is accompanied by Stephan Gregory’s extremely loud music.  Anyone alienated by the play is finished off by the lighting and music during the interludes.  The performances do lean into the loud and shouty – it’s an abrasive and difficult world to sit with and as I mentioned some opted for home at interval. Now, there hasn’t been a show that has divided audiences in Sydney for a while – from the water cooler to social media people either love “The President” or hate it. Why this why now is the most common question. Quoting from Steve Dow in the SMH “In a work marked by political satire, we look more for reflections of our times, for our fretting for democracy’s future to be writ large. Indeed, when Weaving’s president mentions a “huge paper conspiracy / against us / all the newspapers / every one of them / a massive paper conspiracy”, we think of a certain US political hopeful who recycles his cries of “witch-hunt” when held to account – but we are already getting that self-serving satire daily in our news cycle. The emphasis on newspapers in “The President” marks its age. This era deserves a political satire that addresses, say, social media and partisan media’s role in promulgating disinformation, our growing dystopia racked by irreconcilable division.” The closing scene of the production is worth waiting for.  This is the invention of Tom Creed and his collaborators. The audience is invited to leave the auditorium via the stage, past the President’s lying-in-state.  It is a cool gimmick and most of the audience (those who were left) took up the opportunity to be ushered onto and across the stage and then back into the foyer.  The idea is that the audience are mourners passing the Presidents body now lying in state. If you stick around, it adds a fair bit more time to an already long night. The idea of getting up close to Hugo Weaving is fascinating after such an energy filled eruption of a performance. But alas, I suspect it was a dummy.  I asked the usher, left in the house, if the actors would take a curtain call and was told no.  I guess they had left the building as well! Kate Gaul

Qui a tué mon père (Who killed my father) Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Writer and philosopher Édouard Louis takes to the stage in “Qui a tué mon père (Who killed my father)”, a deeply personal work directed by acclaimed theatre-maker Thomas Ostermeier. Growing up as a young gay man in the French provinces, Édouard Louis long held a deep disgust for his violent, alcoholic father, whose homophobic outbursts plagued his childhood. His book “Qui a tué mon père”, on which the solo performance is based, caused a sensation in France and internationally, and led to Thomas Ostermeier inviting him to the Schaubühne Berlin to stage it as a piece of theatre.  Using the broken body of his seriously ill father as a starting point, Édouard Louis undertakes a defiant rewrite of the recent political and social history of France. “Qui a tué mon père (Who killed my father)” examines France’s neglect of the working class and contempt for the poor, accusing the country’s upper classes and political operators of negligent homicide, even murder. The festival program tells us that this is “both a polemic against the class system and an intimate love letter.” And that “Qui a tué mon père (Who killed my father)” is an indignant and impassioned piece of autobiographical theatre from one of France’s most influential young writers”. Given that Adelaide also hosts a writer’s festival at this time of year, audiences are getting a double whammy with this production. So, who killed his father? The writer knows who: the successive French governments of Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande, and Macron. By cutting and restricting access to welfare and disability benefits (and humiliating those who rely on them), those governments and presidents ‘broke my father’s back all over again’ after he was disabled by an industrial accident, condemning him to work as a street cleaner ‘bent over all day and cleaning up other people’s trash’. The performance is quiet, smooth, and very accomplished. Édouard Louis holds us for 90 minutes.  It has none of the theatrical bravado of an “actor”. It’s played on a simple set of table, chair and armchair. Behind him the muted monochrome projections (from videographers Sebastien Dupouey and Marie Sanchez) locate us in the vicinity of Hallencourt in Northern France, close to the infamous Somme, where Louis (aka Eddy Bellegueule) grew up in a toxic, violent, homophobic family and spent every fibre of his being escaping it at the age of 18. It’s ultimately a strange production – often humorous but largely distanced monologue and obviously an abridged version of a book (which I guess we can go read for ourselves).  It eschews theatricality and yet it feels right to present this as theatre.  Let’s face it, director Ostermeier is no slouch! The story is mostly compelling but it’s a bit of a stretch to conflate misogyny, homophobia, and classism as racism as our speaker does early in the piece. And the final scenes of dressing up in the children’s cape and party hat to name and shame the French politicians felt passe. Whatever your experience of “Qui a tué mon père (Who killed my father)” audiences leap to their feet shouting “Bravo!” – I guess this is what festivals are all about. Kate Gaul

Hillsong Boy The Fying Nun Hillsong was first formed in 1983 by Brian and Bobbie Houston as the “decidedly functional, even dowdy” The Hills Christian Life Centre, in outer-suburban Sydney. Now one of Australia’s most recognisable Pentecostal megachurches, it has congregations and campuses across the globe. In recent years, “unlikely king” Brian got widespread attention as a “close friend” of Scott Morrison, who had regularly attended Horizon Church, founded by a former Hillsong pastor, before he became Australia’s prime minister. Houston resigned in March 2022, after allegations of inappropriate conduct of “serious concern” with two women. In the same month, Hillsong was accused in Australia’s parliament of “fraud, money laundering and tax evasion”. Additionally, Houston was found not guilty of charges of covering up sexual abuse by his pastor father Frank, whom he described as a “serial paedophile”. (The court accepted Brian’s claim his father’s victim had asked him not to report to police.) Since then, there have been two four-part documentary series, a book, podcast and an SBS documentary on Hillsong.  And now The Flying Nun and Robbi James present “Hillsong Boy” created by ex-Hillsonger and performer Scott Parker and director Felicity Nichol. Parker spent 20+ years in Hillsong and this is his reckoning. In the foyer unfamiliar faces reveal themselves to be ex-Hillsongers ready to hear a familiar story - or as one person expressed “trauma – healing – trauma.” The production starts with Parker singing to a backing track.  Hillsong is known for its alluring Christian Rock and although it’s not clear if Parker is a singing sensation of the church if this is a fantasy or we are in the church.  There are the occasional projected flashes of the ecstatic Hillsong audience in the mega arenas.  We are encouraged to sing along but we need some more support from the sound world to feel safe.  A slightly rocky start to proceedings. Projected diary entries and conversations with a mentor give us more context – this is a kid in the maelstrom of adolescence who is questioning his actions and feelings about sexuality and identity. It’s mostly normal stuff except for the frame of Hillsong – are we waiting for salacious details of corruption and shame?  Being part of the Hillsong church means your life is organised 24/7 and we begin to understand that these plans and programs are created to isolate church members from the rest of society.  There is zero tolerance of criticism or questions, a belief that the charismatic leaders are always right and have exclusive access to what is and valid and truthful.  Sounds like a cult.  Well, that’s where Scott Parker’s interpretation of the institution ends. Felicity Nichol joins Parker onstage as a kind of in-depth interviewer with questions of ever-increasing intensity.  Its funny at times and Parker is a charmer and portrays the wide-eyed innocence of the youngster with ease. He talks about his music and what it means to him.  As an older teen he participates in and exorcism which (darkly and hilariously) involved rubbing supermarket oil on the bodies of other teens (in the dark, of course).  He longs and lusts to rub bodies with Daddy God and as his music becomes more frenzied.  He announces he is bisexual or pan sexual and that accepting his queerness transformed his life and gave him the resilience to fight back and eventually leave Hillsong. Leaving Hillsong has consequences – for his relationship with his family, his church friends, and his relationship to God.  There is great material here to mine but this first outing of the work leaves us blowing in the wind and we never really get to the nub of anything beyond the allure of Hillsong and what hooks young people in.  There is more work planned and getting “Hillsong Boy” in front of an audience is an important step on the way. It will be terrific if it can deep dive beyond the shop front crazy of the cult into a bolder investigation of faith, human behaviour, and identity. Collaborators include consummate Lighting Designer Benjamin Brockman who provides atmosphere and the requisite dazzle for a depiction of the Hillsong years.  Composer and sound designer Kathryn Parker gives us a rich palette of both real world and atmospheric sounds to support the story.  I eagerly await the next iteration. Kate Gaul

The Threepenny Opera Her Magesty’s Theatre, Adelaide In 2028, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s “Threepenny Opera” will turn 100. It remains as fresh today as a scathing critique of ruling-class barbarism and capitalist corruption. It is a work that tends to suit the times, whatever the times. Ruling classes are always barbaric and capitalism is always corrupt.  Barrie Kosky once again triumphs at this year’s Adelaide festival with a production that originated from Brecht’s theatre, The Berliner Ensemble, which Kosky premiered in 2021. The piece is set in Victorian London, but this “The Threepenny Opera “is, naturally, very German, and very Kosky! It has a kind of Berlin cabaret aesthetic and set in a less defined place and time. It all begins with one of the strongest opening (and closing) gestures I have seen in music theatre  -a bejewelled head covered in the plastic covered blue of a bleaching treatment pokes through a black glitter tinsel curtain to sing the “Ballad of Mackie Messer” (or, as it is known in English, “Mack the Knife”).  It is seductive, cheeky and heralds a story of a society teetering on an abyss. Brecht is good for you – that’s always a worry!  But with Barrie at the helm it may just surprise us! Macheath, known to friends and associates as Mackie (Gabriel Schneider), is a local hood who shacks up with Polly (Cynthia Micas), the daughter of a stand-over man and controller of the beggars of London, Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum (Tilo Nest). Peachum and his wife, Celia (Constanze Becker), are none too happy about this, and enrol chief of police Tiger Brown (a quite brilliant Kathrin Wehlisch) to demand justice. Brown is besties with Mackie, having been soldiers together in India.  All these relationships fail — usually because of money, in some way. The work is glittering, entertaining and just as savage as can be. Kosky’s usual clarity with story shines and we never get lost over the three hours. The seven-piece band (covering fifteen instruments) with Adam Benzwi conducting are all good sports as they double as street toughs.  It’s all brash, abrasive, and brilliant. Weill sounds spiky and powerful. In the program notes, Kosky declares Weill as significant to music theatre as Wagner and these musicians further that claim. And incredible jungle gym set by designer Rebecca Ringst has the cast climbing, scrambling, and hanging from its geometric structure. It is an apt metaphor for the brutal clambering for survival these characters endure. A mixture of contemporary glamour and theatrical chic in costumes by Dinah Ehm are dazzling.  Performance styles are eclectic to say the least: vaudevillian expressions and gestures burlesque, knowing, and extended bows and audience interaction. The violence is cartoonish, and creepier and more effective for it. Kosky and his team have a knack for cutting through the usual posturing often seen in Brecht to something quite new, subversive and (also) gleeful. We’ll probably encounter many more “Threepenny’s” through our lives, but I posit none will be as incisive, unique, and unforgettable as Kosky’s take. Tim Byrne of “The Guardian” sums things up perfectly: “Kosky is undeniably a genius, to produce a “The Threepenny Opera” of great urgency and panache. It’s still a profoundly uncomfortable work, challenging a largely wealthy audience not just to part with their complacency, but their pretensions to compassion and altruism. One key song talks of food as the precursor to morality, the inference being that you can’t build a humanist society when people are starving. It immediately brings Gaza to mind, but also the homelessness and desperation on our own doorstep. You rarely get theatre as relevant as that.” Kate Gaul

I Hide in Bathrooms Waterside Workers Hall South Australia’s Vitalstatistix and Adelaide Festival present artist Astrid Pill and collaborators in what they bill as “a surprising meditation on love, grief, death and yearning.” Astrid pill is a multi-disciplinary artist with an impressive body of work spanning almost three decades. She is an engaging artist who moves like a dream, sings, and tells stories with a surreal intensity. Elegant, abrasive.  The show is both as well – alluring and repellent. Standing on the carpeted stage and flagged by two ambiguous piles of fabric covered glass boxes, I kept thinking I was watching a David Lynch film.  The temperature in the venue was reaching an unbearable heat, and Pill’s hypnotic performance transported me to a ferocious limbo land. Working with long-term collaborators and experimental theatre-makers, including co-devisors Ingrid Voorendt, Zoë Barry and Jason Sweeney, Astrid Pill draws on real experiences to create a work that fuses fiction with autobiography. “I Hide in Bathrooms” reflects on the experience of losing an intimate partner, falling for someone whose partner has passed away and traversing a relationship while dying. Shifting between these points of view, a woman addresses her romantic delusions, sense of mortality and capacity for hope. Developed over more than three years and premiered by Vitalstatistix as part of its 40th anniversary celebrations, “I Hide in Bathrooms” is shaped by the diverse artistic interests of Pill, Voorendt, Barry and Sweeney, who have worked across genres including music, dance, writing, video production, soundscapes, visual art and – of course – theatre. Above the stage hangs an ominous dark rock – an asteroid, weight, grief? It unlit and looming presence applied the necessary pressure to the scenario.  I mentioned the fabric covered glass boxes.  Inside the boxes are pieces of cut glass. The catch the incredible lighting with much beauty. Momento Mori.  Feathery pale flowers adorn the far corners of the stage. They catch what breeze there is in this stifling venue.  It may be an unintentional master-stroke to keep this production in this mausaleum. On the forestage, the auditorium chairs have been miniaturised and there are two platforms onto which Astrid can move – as she does – when communicating directly with audience members. All the design elements are top notch and support this moving painting, with superb sensation. There are video projections of the “character”, there is monologue from the widow/wierdo, there is song “The Great Pretender”.  Large words that allude to a cause of death relentlessly scroll through much of the piece. Betrayal.  Panic. Accident.  There is no narrative. This is all an excavation of the connection between love and death from three perspectives: that of a dying person; that of someone who is widowed; and that of a person entering a relationship with someone who is widowed. I loved the dance theatre aspect of the work – it was open and ambiguous in a way that text often is not. It is haunting. And more so the next day. Kate Gaul