Brodie Turner - Page 3

An affirming welcome surprise of a production, boutique and nuanced in its delivery, thoroughly charming in its concept, The Screwtape Letters is a must, especially for all lovers of clown and commedia. Director Hailey McQueen and her team have crafted here a transformation of what could be a lacklustre, perhaps even puerile submission to Sydney's scene into a genuinely entertaining and insightful show with much fortitude in its use of technique and tradition. Polished and precise, The Screwtape Letters is unlike anything Sydney has had to offer this past year.

A bunch of horny working-class high school delinquent adolescents celebrate their final year of high school, what could possibly go wrong? This latest effort by Manly Musical Society takes on the classic musical about those summer nights and the trials, love triangles and memory-making to follow. Manly Musical Society's production is as charming as Sandy, raunchy as Kenickie and funny as mooning the principal in the middle of the high school dance.

Chances for women to create, produce and perform their own stories is such an important opportunity that many hope soon becomes a prevalent element of the Australian theatre landscape. Women in Theatre & Screen is an organisation putting their money where their power is, on stages and screens advocating for gender parity in representation both in front of the audience and behind the scenes. This year WITS presented a diverse and dynamic program for Festival Fatale, which everyone should mark in their diaries next year, for it showed exactly where the emerging talent is coming from in writing, making, acting, events and administration. I was fortunate enough to attend three sensational experiences during the festival.

It was at the time nothing more than a media gaffe when a radio broadcaster called a garrison of Australian soldiers stationed in Libya 'rats in a trap'. In true Aussie spirit, the slight was transformed into a mark of pride and 'The Rats of Tobruk', known for their scavenging and tunnelling became legends of contemporary war story. It proved fertile ground for Writer/Director Chris Huntly-Turner, presenting Rats, a double feature at Old 505 Theatre in Newtown investigating the men on the battleground, and the women defending their homeland, Dirt and Moonshine respectively.

There is little on this planet more absurd than the way we, the human race, treat it; nonetheless the final offering of Griffin Theatre mainstage for the year comes pretty close. The Turquoise Elephant extrapolates the bizarre misconduct of modern society for a pre-apocalyptic glimpse into the life of a rich and powerful family as they in each their own fashion do their part to destroy the world. In its symbolism, Stephen Carleton's text weaves fantastic, but not unrealistic, circumstance with director Gale Edwards' Luhrmannian technicolour styling for quite the nihilistic spectacle.

Step back in time for a night of gothic sets, raving lunatics, heroes and heroines; And of course, you can Count on a vampire or two. Bram Stoker's Dracula receives a Rocky Horror refresh, in this latest season at the Genesian Theatre. Being a seminal classic, The Genesian Theatre stalls are the perfect location for this eerie and looming production that feels it may swallow you up at any moment. An evening equally spooky as entertaining, director Michael Heming has stayed true to the years of interpretations of the evil Count Dracula. Classical elements abound in the production and characterisation to make for a nostalgic night.

Part LES MISERABLES, part Quills, part Australia's backyard, Marat/Sade is a raucous and real-life inspection into the lives of the politically disenfranchised, told through the inmates of what was in Peter Weiss' 1960s original the asylum of Charenton, but in Barry French's direction, could be any detention centre dotting the Asia Pacific. A madcap meta-musical repurposing historic cruelty for the new age, Marat/Sade is a fantastic experience for audiences to get up close and personal with.

Three families take the stage bearing stories of far-flung travel, uncertain futures and the search for a voice to share their journeys. National Theatre of Parramatta presents another fantastic channel into the diverse community of Western Sydney, Who Speaks for Me?

Sport for Jove's reputation has gone from strength to strength this past year for presenting Sydney's most gripping, topical and connective theatre canon, as part of which Damien Ryan's adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone is absolutely at home. A transportation of an ancient Greek tragedy into the context of a very-near-future where its messages of female empowerment, the dangers of dictatorship, the real threat of toxic masculinity on communities, and of 'public opinion' on societal progress are as valid if not more for today's audiences. The ensemble is flawless and diverse, for which alone the ticket price is worth reinforcing a vision for Australian stages such as Sport for Jove have impressed. Andrea Demetriades is a force of nature in the title role, commanding change amongst the people on stage and in the stalls through a performance direct, deep and dynamic. Damien Ryan's text is nothing short of exquisite, which bears repetition and reiteration for its multi-lingual, multi-dimensional transformation of an archetypal narrative. To create something that evokes authentic ancient tragedy not with pity but with empathy is what made this production less theatre and more art in its strongest form with every passing cue and paragraph.

In the modern age of social media, technological advancement in communication, and engineering developments for transport, the ability to connect across borders and boundaries into new countries and cultures is easier than ever. Conversely, forces of xenophobia, warfare and politics have strengthened these invisible divisive lines to give them more potency than before. In Australia, a land that has long been left to its own devices - though not without its own issues of the ripple effects of colonialism and immigration - we cannot always relate to this suffering experienced by war-torn nations caught in the crossfire of occupations and civil conflict. The Cartographer's Curse, the premiere production of the Arabic Theatre Company in partnership with National Theatre of Parramatta, maps out the domestic and public disharmony created by treating nations like playthings to be tug-of-war toyed with between power-hungry empires. It is wonderful to see emerging artists tell these stories to educate us, and done with respect to the ongoing trauma in our own country by inviting an Acknowledgement of Country to commence the performance.

It's the oldest story in the book. Girl trapped inside all her life seeks freedom, and upon finding it discovers a world full of danger, depravity and disaster whereupon she questions the worth and purpose of her very existence as narrated by a quintet of pithy, verbose vixens.

Pushing the boundaries of the performance art from is no easy task, and neither is adapting the quick-fire connective nature of the brain for the stage, and yet in House of Sands' Castles, Eliza Sanders accomplishes both, and more. In a work all at once intimate, quintessentially Australian, randomised and unbelievably funny, reviewing Castles is not a matter of attributing meaning, but asserting the importance of this inclusion in our arts landscape.

4 Minutes 12 Seconds is THE show you need to see, and one of the best pieces of theatre we've reviewed this year. Take your kids, your partner, your friends, your siblings. Theatre as an art form is known for entertainment, but the best theatre is made to challenge, to comment and to contribute to transitions of culture. This production by Outhouse Theatre Co at Old Fitz, is precisely that: gripping, contemporary and powerful. Zooming on the parents of a promising young man caught in the centre of a online video scandal, audiences face questions about parenthood, pornography, consent, domestic discord, and the obsession of the modern generation to share. A five-star, fierce piece of theatre.

Once upon a time, many Premiers ago, when the world was new and the only cross worth knowing was far from Christian, Sydney was abuzz with glamour and debauchery, which Hidden Sydney transports audiences back to in a spectacular promenade performance. A partnership between Working Management and Live Ideas, Hidden Sydney is a once-in-a-lifetime piece featuring a range of Australian performers, emerging and established, recreating a typical evening on Kings Cross in its heyday.

The parameters for what is deemed taboo in contemporary culture, especially Fringe culture, have vastly changed in recent years from topics deemed too controversial to topics deemed too personal. Gavin Roach's one-man mastery of the personal, entitled Measure of a Man, definitely broaches and breaches taboos of homosexual stereotyping, male sexuality and the trappings of masculinity. At moments shocking, hilarious, and provocative, Roach entwines traditions of storytelling, incorporating mime, cabaret and technical recourse to tell his story of a sex life full of misgivings and misinterpretations of what makes a man in the bedroom.

'There is an art to science, and a science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole' - Isaac Asimov

What's not to relate to in a story of two young rebels who've made one mistake too many and seek refuge in new age philosophy? In this story of the search for redemption, connection beyond ego and not taking life too seriously, subtlenuance's Atlantis manages to hit some genuine contemporary themes in amongst a humorous and choppy script written by Paul Gilchrist. On the run from a tricky scenario involving drugs and a failed acting career, Sarah and Tom seek refuge with Sarah's aunt Zelda who runs a metaphysical store in Byron Bay. Zelda is a bit kooky, and her mystical delusions will test the young lovers' relationship and ability to resolve their past.