Acknowledged as the “Queen of Cosy Crime”, Agatha Christie’s detective stories often featuring Miss Marple or Hercules Poirot, have been translated into many languages and adapted into many film, television and stage productions. Anthony Hinds’s Let’s Kill Agatha Christie while making fun of the genre popularised by Christie, is also a ridiculously funny play staged with energy and style by the Genesian.
Sydney’s Le Petit Theatre have opened their first post-pandemic production with the crime-comedy 8 Femmes. The play is best known through François Ozon’s 2002 now dated film version and savvy director, Anna Jahjah, has wisely chosen to create her own chic version of Robert Thomas’s original 1958 play.
The Belvoir is fortunate to showcase the world premiere of Nayika: A Dancing Girl, an astonishing solo performance by Vaishnavi Suryaprakash. While relevant to the present escalating partner violence, and a powerful piece of truth-telling, it is also of a performance of memorable strength and beauty.
God doesn’t rate a mention in Samuel D. Hunter’s sensitive and probing A Case for the Existence of God, however faith is rewarded in a low-key and moving way. Faith in what, we ask, or is it simply the hope that things in the end might turn out not to be irredeemably wretched for both characters in this tightly directed absorbing two-hander.
Australia Felix is an entertaining and thoughtful play. Writer Geoffrey Sykes has chosen the ideal story through which to probe our chequered history and the uncertainty of our future, the cast is very appealing in their various roles and have good voices, and Steve Wood’s songs are both catchy and purposeful.
Collide is Shopfront’s most recent ArtsLab program showcasing the work of emerging artists who are given not only the opportunity to develop their work but also the support of practising professional artists. The current festival of new work includes three completely original and, each in their unique way, inspiring theatrical performances.
Adapted by Tommy Murphy from Tim Conigrave’s 1995 best-selling memoir, first staged in 2006 and turned into a film in 2015, Holding the Man, while a queer classic of Sydney literature and stage, has almost reached mythic status.
Agapi and Other Kinds of Love is an innovative and intriguing show merging hip-hop beats with music for ancient instruments and swinging in time between Athens in 416 BCE and the modern-day city. The text, exploring different kinds of love and inspired by Plato’s The Symposium is performed by poet and rapper Luka Lesson ...
The audience reaction to Tiny Beautiful Things was rapt attention throughout and rapturous applause at the close. This moving and life-affirming performance based on Cheryl Strayed’s best-seller and adapted for theatre by Nia Varlados comes at a time when many are struggling to find consolation or hope in dark and confusing times.
Would you like to go to the theatre and enjoy a night of sheer fun, ridiculous antics and hilariously organised chaos? As good as pre-Christmas drinks, the Ensemble’s absurd romp Midnight Murder at Hamlington Hall offers a welcome escape from responsible adulthood and permission to indulge in giggling at Kilmurry and Oxenbould’s cheerfully zany take on the well-worn phrase “What could go wrong?”
The enthusiastic opening night audience gave a standing ovation to Eamon Flack’s ambitious and magical adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s complex and layered novel The Master and Margarita. What is the connection between a novel written during the Stalinist regime and only published as a complete book in 1967 and a contemporary audience whose freedom of expression seems unrestricted by comparison?
Taking inspiration from the concept of the Lost Boys, Peter Pan’s companions, the Little Eggs Collective has devised a mesmerising hour-long performance of soundscape, movement and spoken word exploring the volatile emotional “innerscape” of the modern pre-teen.
Shelagh Stephenson’s 1996 prize-winning play The Memory of Water is surprisingly relevant as it explores the influence, actual or imagined, of a mother upon the future lives of her children.
Drifters presents the second of its twice-yearly festival of new work from Shopfront Arts Residency program which partners emerging artists with industry mentors and provides a performance opportunity. The fresh, lively and thoughtful program offers an exciting glimpse into the creative minds of the young and vibrant.
The Disappearance, adapted by Les Solomon from Kim Platt’s novel The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear, fits well with Mental Health Month which is intended to raise community awareness and understanding of mental health issues.
Deadhouse Productions, purveyors of tales from the Sydney Morgue, once again both thrill and haunt their audience with their very successful immersive presentation of Juanita Nielsen: The Final Days.
As well as explaining the details of a major constitutional crisis with clarity, The Dismissal is also a stylish musical satirising Australian politics and politicians.
Under Molly Hadden’s direction, Agatha Christie’s “country house murder”, beautifully indulges our nostalgia for a partly imaginary past while allowing its major characters complex motivation.
Subtlenuance’s return production of Paul Gilchrist’s Catherine at Avignon is very relevant in the wake of Greta Thunberg’s challenge to world leaders to act on climate change.
Although not without its dramatic moments, The Weekend is deeply moving because its disclosures are low key, often almost tacit and often suggested through stage effects.
Richard Hilliar’s stage adaptation of Henry James’s much-debated novella The Turn of the Screw delights in presenting a range of Gothic horror elements while giving James’s apparent theme a more contemporary perspective.
Yuldea, the anticipated full-length performance choreographed by Frances Rings in her new role as Artistic Director of the iconic Bangarra Dance Company, is an extraordinary achievement.
The Genesian’s production of Steven Canny and John Nicholson’s hilarious re-invention of the celebrity detective Sherlock Holmes’s well-known case The Hound of the Baskervilles is a must-see.
According to author A. D. Aliwat, “When done right, a sandwich can lead to transcendence”, and so it does, or something like it, in Lynn Nottage’s very funny truck stop café play Clyde’s .
In Expiration Date, Flynn Mapplebeck and Lana Filies are trapped in a shiny lift but, more importantly, in a society which still is uneasy with women who choose profession over motherhood.
Emergence is a retrospective look at, and a celebration of, Milk Crate’s 24 years of making performance work by and with people with lived experience of homelessness, mental health issues and disability.
Jay James-Moody’s successful adaptation of On a Clear Day explores the complex themes of loss, gender, sexuality, and power amid the hilarity generated by a comedy of errors.
