The Book of Everything, Belvoir St Theatre in co-production with Kim Carpenter's Theatre of Image, Upstairs Belvoir, 22 Aug-20 Sept

 Image by Brett Boardman

This is the return of Belvoir's 2010 production with a lot of the original crew back (four of the original 8 actors returning to the same roles, and the same design and directorial team) - so long ago that I missed it and have only seen Rep's outstanding 2013 production instead (reviewed here). So this is a chance to see a reproduction of a legendary production, with Kim Carpenter's astonishing original designs, Neil Armfield's warm and adorable direction, and with all the playfulness, heart and soul that this coming-of-age story needs.

To start with the newbies - John Gaden gets to be both a terrifyingly real threat as Father and a comical one as the Bumbiter, Pamela Rabe glories in her chance to play in an ensemble and to relish a spectacular pair of slacks as Auntie Pye, Rebecca Massey is both the egotistically superior older sister and the angry protective one when required, and Bridie McKim makes us fall in love with her as much as Thomas does with her gentle Eliza. The original cast are back owning their roles, from Matthew Whittett's central, innocent, hopeful Thomas to Julie Forsyth's endearing Mrs Van Amerhorst, Claire Jones' warm mother and John Leary's super-sociable Jesus. 

This is a play and a production that knows where the warmth and the hard-edged bits are, and plays both to the hilt. It was an instant classic then and it remains just as vibrant and powerful now, 16 years later. It's a great trip back in time to see something truly great. 

Mum Club, Griffin Theatre Company in association with Belvoir Street Theatre, Belvoir Downstairs, 22 Aug-20 Sept

  photo by Phil Erbacher

"Mum Club" looks at a recent indigenous mother who's moved to Sydney from Perth for her partner's career, and is suddenly raising a child without any of her family connections. Her attempts to join a local mothers club find her in the middle of what might technically be called "white women's nonsense", while the Redfern Medical Centre may just offer her the friendship she needs, together with some bonding over the power of Romantasy fiction. 

Jorjia Gillis' play wanders a bit in tone between broad satire and more emotional drama - protagonist Sadie faces threats both comic and more serious - but it captures the isolation that new motherhood can create and the desire to create connections that aren't necessarily the best for you. Stephane Somerville carries the weight of much of the dramatic side of the equation while also being the straight-women to some of the broader comic roles of the rest of the cast - Alex Malone and Ruby Teys are mostly playing broad caricatures, while Megan Wilding brings a warmth to her supportive role as someone slightly more trustworthy. Ian Michael's production tends to attempt to surf the tone shifts but in the tiny Belvoir Downstairs space feels slightly clunky as the shifts in location and mood aren't always achieved smoothly.

 It does feel slightly like a more pointed political comedy has been a little defanged in the rewrites and the production into something a bit more crowd-pleaser, and while it certainly gets the laughs, the truths underneath tend to go wanting a little. It's not unpolished but there does seem to be a gutsier version of this that would have hit harder on the genuine dillemmas of indigenous women traversing spaces that claim to value diversity but only seem to value diversity as a nice flashy token, not as a way to understand others' experiences. 

In short, this feels like this lands more in the "pleasant night out" than "essential theatre" - it is certainly still pleasant and, again, the ideas underneath seem interesting but they're not really brought out in the open to get full exploration. 

Saplings, Australian Theatre for Young People, The Q, 22 Aug (annd subsequent touring to Penrith, Bairnsdale and Warrnambool)

 

Image by Clare Hawley from original 2024

"Saplings" looks at a mixture of young people who encounter the criminal justice system in various ways (either directly as perpetrators or as family members of people in prison). Four actors play a variety of figures on an institutional grey set, co-designed by Angela Doherty and Morgan Moroney and lit strikingly by Moroney. The scenes are linked by a hip-hop soundtrack by Michael Weir. There's strong performances across all four actors-  Sam Harmon perhaps most strikingly in a monologue that ties together Mi-Goreng noodles, family dysfunction and a sense of purposelessness, but there's also strength that comes from Malyan Blair in a scene about his fear of what comes after prison, from Danny Howard as 

This is rough-edged material, writer Hannah Belansky drawing from direct contact with young people in the system and reflecting their raw experience back in her writing - and director Abbie-lee Lewis gives it a striking, physical production with the occasional moment of beauty and warmth in among the rougher edges. There are a couple of issues with audibility here and there - not sure whether actors are simply going at too fast a pace or if they're letting authentic language clash with diction too- but for the most part  the material comes across strong and impactful, in a production that holds a lot of interest to anyone who's interested in younger voices.

I love you, you're perfect, now change, Free-Rain Theatre Company, ACT Hub, 19 Aug-5 Sep

Photo by Janelle McMenamin

"I love you, you're perfect, now change" is a series of sketches and songs - act one looks at dating leading up to a wedding, and act two deals with what comes after  - children, routines and the possibilities of divorce and widowhood. Writer Joe DiPetro's gone on since this show to write the Elvis-themed "All Shook Up",  Tony-winning "Memphis", the cult favourite "Toxic Avenger" musical, the delightful "Nice Work if you can get it", and the somewhat tacky "Diana" musical, while composer Jimmy Roberts career hasn't gone very far since this - but this is a show that's played wide and long all over the world simply by being relatable, small scale and quite entertaining. 

It's written for a small ensemble playing multiple roles, and in Free-Rain's production it's immaculately performed by six performers - Amelia Andersson-Nickson, Connor McNaught, David Pearson, Deborah O'Toole, Sam Thomson and Sarah Copley - who cover multiple roles and relationships. As a show originally from the late 90s (though rewritten slightly in this version), it's very much from the "Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus" school of gender-essentialism, but the gags mostly hold up 30 years later. In this production, it's given a stylish look on an abstracted chessboard by Janie Lawson, with some sketches somewhat localised and other sketches staying in the US context of the original material. The musical accompaniment by Leo Amadeus (who has also coached the cast in the tight vocal harmonies) and Laura Ley on violin is small but impactful, going from speedy tense rhythms to touching ballads to genre spoofs. The cast is stylishly costumed by Louise Newey in a mix of reds, whites and blacks.  

The ensemble cast play very well together, whether it be Copley and McNaught exploring alternate personas as "A Stud and A babe", Andersson-Nickson and Thompson fast-forwarding through a relationship in "Better Things to Do", or O'Toole and Pearson finding gentle resolution in "I Can Live With That", or in solo showcases like Thompson's Baby song, Copley's videodate speech, Pearson's scared-straight monologue or Andersson-Nickson's Bridesmaid's lament (aided by some clever lighting by Craig Muller). 

As we transition into spring, it's not a bad time to think of mating-and-dating rituals, and this is a fun way to celebrate it - it's not a groundbreaking show so much as a pleasantly reassuring one. But it's fun to see this ensemble in some material that gives their talents room to show off. 

 

Diamond, Q The locals, The Q, 6-8 August

 Image: O&J Wikner Photography

Liz Lea is a 50-something showgirl, exploring post-menopause in a show that combines dance, song, video, pyrotechnics, comedy and burlesque. She's a fascinating figure and puts on a show that is visually spectacular - choreographing herself and two dance teams in a range of production numbers and moments that makes for a tight one hour of spectacle and insight.

It's difficult to pin this one down into a specific genre - it's not quite a dance show, not quite a standup routine - but part of the joy of the genre shifting is that it never becomes dull as there's always something new coming up soon . Lea is fantastically costumed (costumes by herself, Bruce Scott and Cate Clelland), stunningly lit by Karen Norris and supported by strong video elements (technical director Roni Wilkinson). Some of the writing for the stand-up portion, in all honesty, could be a little tighter - but it makes Lea relatable in her confessional nature, not too over-polished (though talking about her concussions makes me a little worried when she starts dancing again that she doesn't endanger herself!). The support of seven-member showgirl troupe High Kix and dance troupe Silver Stars gives the show added dazzle when required. 

A visual spectacle with a strong theme, this is a joyous, compelling look at aging that never stops being entertaining. 

Izzard: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Bohm, Canberra Theatre Centre, Playhouse - 31 Jul-1 aug

 Suzy Eddie Izzard has been touring this one-woman Hamlet since 2024 across the US, UK, Canada and recently New Zealand and Australia, with plans to perform in other countries in the future. It is a marathon effort, playing 23 characters across around 2 and a half hours of Shakespearean dialogue, plotting and counterplotting, in a story of desperation, revenge, inner turmoil and outer rebellion. And while, yes, it is to a certain extent a stunt, it's for much of its length a reasonably bold and impressive stunt.

Izzard's performing history as a stand-up comedian and street performer means that it's a very direct in-your-face production - barebones in terms of set, lighting and costumes  (two side lights means that if Izzard stands near the back of the stage she strikes two notable shadows, and a single spotlight near the back of the stage is used for appearances by the ghost). It's easier in scenes with only a few characters and some characters register more than others - Orphelia slightly disappears except for her mad scene, and the sword fight near the end is a mishmash of a lot of swirling around. The script has been trimmed and slightly modernised by Suzy's brother Mark (so Hamlet no longer talks about bearing fardels, but bearing burdens instead, and the post-death speeches are a lot brisker) and Izzard moves fast through the speeches - taking her time over some of the soliloquies but rattling through a lot of the text at quite a pace, demanding the audience keep up - and for the most part we do. Her Hamlet is a somewhat aloof, suicidal intellectual who cannot stop from arguing with the world around her - even before the ghost shows up, she's already talking about how this too too solid flesh should melt - and it feels like the play gets somewhat more chaotic after intermission as Hamlet's first attempt at revenge goes hideously awry. 

This is a powerful night of theatre that keeps an audience captured through multiple hours of solo shakespeare, and while it may not be the easiest or most powerful Hamlet out there, it's an impressive event. 

The Glass Menagerie, Canberra Rep, 23 July-8 August

 This is my second time seeing "The Glass Menagerie" (after the Belvoir production 12 years ago reviewed here). For this one, Geoffrey Borny moves back to the original text that was modified for the Broadway production, including slides with titles and images underlining key phrases and thoughts in the characters' heads. It's a play that is both told as a memory of Tom's and features characters reaching back for their glory days - whether Jim and Laura's remembrances of their early encounters in high school or Amanda's reveries of her glory days in the Old South (albeit ones which were clearly only glorious due to the availability of  African-American servants). And it's about how the combination of memories of the past and hopes for the future can be painful, as neither are quite how you want them to be. 

The framing device of Tom's reminiscences results in a peculiarly distant performance from Rob DeFries - he's never quite immersed with his fellow actors the way he should be - the concept of casting an older actor in the role is a good one theoretically in focussing on how the play is his reminiscences but it does mean that when he's sharing scenes with other characters, he's never entirely in-the-part. This means that the play tends to work more solidly when he's isolated monologuing on the porch or where scenes don't feature him - this is not necessarily a problem with DeFries as a performer so much as it's the conception of the role in this production - there's no particular tugging of him back into the family so much as a lot of pushing him out of it. Elsewhere, Victoria Tyrell-Dixon is a force of indomitable nature as the planning, driving Amanda, Jamie Johnston creates a figure of delicacy and vulnerability as Laura without ever being too easily pre-broken, and John Whinfield is a charmer as the gentleman caller who isn't quite aware what he's walking into and is even less aware what his departure leaves behind - not an insensitive clod so much as someone who just doesn't realise how much those around him have invested in his presence.

Craig Muller's lighting handles the candle-lit second-act sequence well, though around that there's some lapses here and there between areas meaning shaded patches show up where they shouldn't. Sarea Coates' set creates a tight space for the family to gather with a substantial balcony area for Tom to retreat to. Nev Pye mixes like an old-style Hollywood epic on a rich soundtrack. 

"The Glass Menagerie" is a rich classic that still speaks to today in its heartbreaking tale of past-present-and-future-hopes, and this production is a strong evocation of that classic material.