Culture
Theatre
The circus students bending over backwards to put on a show
Last year’s graduating class at the national circus academy in Prahran were, finally, just about to put on their ensemble show. Then lockdown hit. Again.
- by Nick Miller
Latest
★★★½
Review
The lonely fate of a gay best friend
When you are single and your friends are your family, what happens when those friends settle down and make families of their own?
- by Cassie Tongue
‘I am a worthy love interest’: Glace Chase on her trans rom-com
The playwright and performer went to New York and hosted queer-themed walking tours of Greenwich Village. Her new play Triple X is the result of a long journey.
- by Daniel Penny
★★½
Review
Mad frenzy replaces gentle comedy of change
This production prioritises liveliness over Anton Chekhov’s finer details.
- by John Shand
Wild foxes reclaim abandoned RISING installation as festival folds
The huge RISING arts festival had planned for almost every COVID contingency. But a full lockdown has killed almost all its 2021 plans.
- by Nick Miller
★★★½
Review
Taking the terror out of audience participation
New Zealand’s a Slightly Isolated Dog performing troupe takes the terror out of audience participation.
- by John Shand
How the writer of Frozen fixed Disney’s ‘princess problem’
To present empowered princesses, Jennifer Lee redefined what it means to be a Disney lead – and encouraged the exploration of rich inner lives.
- by John Bailey
Is this what male friendship is really like? Florian Zeller peels back the layers
Stephen Curry and Bert LaBonte volley through a game of deception in the MTC’s production of The Truth.
- by Jenny Valentish
‘Devastated is mostly the feeling’: Rising organisers vow they’ll be back
The lockdown has closed Melbourne’s huge new winter arts festival, but its directors vow we will see the work that was to have been staged over the next week.
- by Nick Miller and Kerrie O'Brien
★★★★½
Rising Festival
Sublime art carved from the experience of humiliation and cruelty
Food Court is a theatrical masterpiece and its return season for RISING reaffirms the show’s power as it addresses bullying and disability.
- by Cameron Woodhead
A Chekhov classic bears new fruit for a world in a state of crisis
Actor Pamela Rabe plays nostalgic matriarch in Belvoir St Theatre’s new production of The Cherry Orchard.
- by Lenny Ann Low