Artiste | Brymore Productions
As with many a great clowning performance, the comedy is born from the rules created by the performer and how quickly those boundaries get broken. In this sense, the Artiste was as hilarious a rule breaker as they come.
Jack Sharpe and The Curse of The Forbidden Fruit | Fake Blood
I loved the detailed research, the entertaining Harry Potter and Indiana Jones references, the story arc of the show, and the high-energy performances by each of the three artists. And I enjoyed the clever use of the apples as a metaphor for opening the eyes of performers, creatives, commentators and audiences.
Hide The Dog | Nathan Maynard & Jamie McCaskill
As a first generation immigrant mother endeavouring to teach her daughter to have pride in her ancestry and speak her language confidently, I cannot stress the primacy of plays such as ‘Hide the Dog’ being supported and presented on multiple platforms.
Crazy Fucking Bitches | A Little Life Theatre
We start by going back to the story of Eve and I liked seeing her in the garden, five Eve’s consuming perfect red apples in the lustful manner they deserve.
Personal | Jodee Mundy Collaborations
Personal is such a heartfelt story of being a Child of Deaf Adults (CODA) and hands down deserves the awards it’s won as both excellence in theatre, and educational in terms of advocacy for the d/Deaf experience.
Stunt Double | The Farm
The scene exploded into a perfect, frantic homage to b-movies that had me grinning ear to ear. That feeling of anticipation, of knowing you were about to see something that was purely and intensely fun, was my favorite part of this production.
Break | Cecilia Martin & The Farm
Highlights were the directness and vulnerability with which the story was told, and the interweaving of acrobatic skills. We hear insights into the close relationship between skilled performers—including the sheer joy of ‘getting it right,’ as well as the pain and pressure of training, travel, and surgeries, and we see great use of the spinning plates, walking on broken china, incredible athleticism (and skipping), and quite amazing trapeze and aerial acrobatics.
Glass Child | The Farm & Kayah and Maitreyah Guenther
In the past two days, I have found myself continuously contemplating every aspect of the performance. The show had so many subtle details that made it truly special. As someone who enjoys revisiting past reviews to gauge a show’s lasting impact and reflect on any evolving opinions, I can confidently say that Glass Child has already left an indelible mark on me. It is a production that I will undoubtedly continue to think about for months to come.
Hold Me Closer Tony Danza | The Farm
Hold Me Closer Tony Danza took me by surprise. I expected a show that was much more focused on pop culture references and punchlines. These aspects were undoubtedly present, but the show was more impactful and thoughtful overall. The common ground of pop culture and music was used to bring the audience together and prime us for more complex topics. While watching, I felt simultaneously unsure of what was coming next and excited to see where the performers would take us. This show will be stuck in my head for a long time, alongside the slightly altered chorus of Elton John's Tiny Dancer.
Slow Boat | Anna Yen
There is something about relating to characters on the stage that humanises stories so very much. We can read an article about the relentless inhumanity of the Australian government and the colonial importation of cheap Asian labour, but a depiction of a bloody and brutal desert scene and the rise and fall of pickaxes worms its way into your head in a much more effective way.
Holding Achilles | Dead Puppet Society & Legs on the Wall
Morton’s Holding Achilles’ queer lens, and re-gendering/de-gendering of key roles, offers fascinating new insights into an old story. My two strongest ‘ah-ha’ moments connected with the themes of parent/child legacies, and about the true nature of heroism - are heroes those who have the short lives that are celebrated in epic tales, or those who seek the ordinary long lives that are celebrated on the warrior’s shield?
RUNT | Dee, Cornelius and Wilks
We are ruled by the body. We think our chattering minds are leading this affair but really it is the body that sings and screams, the skin that hungers for touch. You can go mad if no one touches you. You can go mad if love gets all twisted up. We know that children need safety to grow strong and true, they need enough attention to validate them, that emotional maturity and regularity is directly linked to the security we experience in our formative years.
Leotard | Boyle & Waters
Gorgeous leotards adorn the walls of the set. Leotards with hand-sewn sequins, with tinsel wrapped into tutus, with spangles and silk and cheap organza and above all else, lycra. Leotards with contrasting spandex panels. Leotards which costs hundreds, and leotards that are worth pennies. Leotards you wished you had owned, then, and now.
Locked In | Shock Therapy Productions
A masterclass in restraint, there is abundant space in this performance, with much unusual and interesting to muse upon. A highlight is the mixed stage vocabulary of acting, physical movement, dance and projection, creating a highly watchable storytelling mechanism.
Sewer Rat Girl | Siobhan Gibbs
The entire performance is overflowing with chaos but it is a sort of unruliness that can only come with rigorous curation and planning. A personal highlight was a joke made about intermediality that made my HECS-debt a little more worth the trouble of paying it back.
Maze | The Naughty Corner Collective
The actors used neon tube lighting to move around the space, giving shape to the maze and blocking Wray’s path as he approached dead ends. This was a very effective use of the small stage. Further, it made the labyrinth feel alive, almost like a character itself, with the lighting being the blood pumping through the veins of the tunnels.
Demolition | Polytoxic
When arriving at my seat a wave of proud brown girl joy makes its way through my spirit as the demolition work site sets the scene for what is going to be one of the most memorable shows that I've witnessed. I was about to undergo a unravelling of identity and I was more than ready!
Demolition | Polytoxic
The importance of solidarity really stuck with me and I felt like I was being shown an inclusive version of sisterhood that I could really relate to. This was no highly sanitised mainstream girlboss sisterhood, but the kind of solidarity that can be difficult and gritty and requires you to show up for other people and do the work.
Demolition | Polytoxic
Polytoxic’s show Demolition is not only a staggering showcasing of Circus and Theatre, it is a moving and uplifting Call-To-Arms. The effortless shift of scenes drew my senses in and catapulted me from issue to issue that many women in this world face on a daily basis.
Demolition | Polytoxic
This work left me feeling seen on so many levels - as a Queer non-binary person struggling to fit the status quo, as a Maori woman who wasn’t raised on her Marae or Ancestral lands, as a Mother realising the importance of embracing culture for your children’s future, as a woman being surrounded by the constant pressures of living up to the patriarchal structure and never feeling good enough. I felt uplifted, hopeful, powerful and full of rage.