Culture
Theatre
The voices of experience slip back into the roles of adolescence
Matthew Whittet’s play about a group of 17-year-olds played by actors many years older brings out how people of all ages consider the passage of time.
- by Peter Craven
Latest
Why it’s OK if all your book club reads is wine labels
A new play about the power of female friendship (disguised as a book club) opens this weekend as part of the Sydney Festival.
- by Helen Pitt
There was no way Kitan wanted to direct this play. Then he read the script
Loosely based on Howards End, with a cast of 13 actors and a total run-time of seven hours split over two parts, The Inheritance is an ambitious undertaking.
- by Nadia Bailey
★★★★★
Review
This explosive new production is among the best Shakespeares I’ve ever seen
Shakespeare in Sydney is rarely in the league of this Timon of Athens.
- by John Shand
Exclusive
Arts
Roll up! Roll up! Arts Centre embraces its almost forgotten death-defying history
Back in the day, Wirth’s Circus occupied the site of Arts Centre Melbourne. Now the “greatest show on earth” has returned with a production featuring a contortionist, life-sized animal puppets and a trapeze act.
- by Jewel Topsfield
Mates and melodies: The musical that invites you to have a pint with the cast
Jukebox musical The Choir of Man offers up hit songs and good times – but as fun as the show is, there’s more to it than boisterous bloke culture.
- by Stephen A Russell
The year ahead on stage: the best shows coming to Victoria in 2024
In another big year on Melbourne stages, here are 10 shows we’re looking forward to seeing in 2024
- by John Bailey
No, you can’t remove politics from theatre – that’s what makes it so good
A critic maps the intersection between theatre and politics by looking back over the shows that hit Melbourne’s stages in 2023.
- by Cameron Woodhead
Nellie Small: The queer black icon Sydney didn’t know it had
A long forgotten star of the Sydney stage, Nellie Small, will be honoured in a tribute show at the 2024 Sydney Festival.
- by Helen Pitt
How a classic set in the Edwardian era became a modern gay epic
Playwright Matthew Lopez’s sweeping seven-hour play The Inheritance transposes E.M. Forster’s classic Howard’s End into a tale of modern-day gay New York.
- by Richard Jinman
★★★★
Review
Frock up, Sydney: Jay Gatsby is throwing a party
This sexy, exuberant cabaret sizzles with physical energy.
- by Joyce Morgan