Category: Drama
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Homos, or Everyone in America (New Theatre) ★★★
What makes gay relationships different to straight ones? Set around the peak time of the fight for marriage equality in the US, Homos, or Everyone in America looks at tug of war between hetero-normative coupling, polyamory and what life for a gay couple is like once things become equal.
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Low Level Panic (KXT on Broadway) ★★★1/2
Three young women in a 90’s house-share trying to find love, or at least good sex, feels like the premise for an easy comedy, but Clare McIntyre’s Low Level Panic is a subtle exposé of the everyday impact of a male dominated culture over the women trying to navigate it.
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Shitty (Belvoir 25a) ★★★★
What’s more horrific than turning 30 and looking for love?
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The Inheritance, Parts 1 & 2 (Forty Five Downstairs) ★★★★
The Inheritance, is a sprawling epic, very loosely based on EM Forster’s Howards End. It was lauded in London, but dismissed on Broadway, in Melbourne it’s back to being adored once more.
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The Seagull (Sydney Theatre Co) ★★★1/2
A familiar, classic play, adapted by a familiar, acclaimed playwright, starring a lot of familiar, adored faces. This should be an end-of-year showstopper, but as good as it is The Seagull is a bit less than the sum of its exciting parts.
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The Dictionary of Lost Words (Sydney Theatre Co) ★★★
Words and language are powerful signifiers of what we consider to be important. While in the internet age words are easy to disseminate (like one guy spouting his opinions about theatre for example), the history of how we organise and communicate information and the decisions made along the way, is a thorny one.
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The Memory of Water (Ensemble) ★★★★
The premise of Shelagh Stephenson’s The Memory of Water sounds like the set up to a farce. After the death of their mother Violet (Nicole Da Silva), three sisters converge on the family home for the funeral. They each deal with their grief in different ways. It’s a comedy that’ll make you cry.
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Venus & Adonis (Seymour Centre) ★★★1/2
Damien Ryan’s Venus & Adonis feels like a companion piece to Jessica Swale’s Nell Gwynn, both reframe Shakespeare with a female protagonist, lashings for humour and cutting commentary on the battle of the sexes.
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Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill (Belvoir) ★★★★1/2
Zahra Newman steps into the role that won Audra McDonald her 6th Tony Award and an Emmy nomination. These are big shoes to fill, and she is more than up to the task.
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The Visitors (Sydney Theatre Co.) ★★★★
Six clan leaders, and one younger proxy, gather to observe the boats approaching their land and discuss how best to deal with the situation. Should they present a show of force to scare them away, or treat them like visitors and offer hospitality?
Cultural Binge 