Sunday 17 March 2019 Irene Bell Heartfelt examination of life and memory World Problems, written and performed by Emma Mary Hall, is a tender look at the way we experience life. Hall recounts memories for the audience, giving equal weight…
Friday 1 March 2019 Alison Croggon ‘As a post-apocalyptic imagining of a US “bombed back to the Stone Age” by its own energy industry, it expresses the dread that pierced the brittle armour of western invulnerability when the proxy wars…
Friday 1 February 2019 Leeor Adar From the get-go, Beng Oh’s direction of Mike Bartlett’s witty work is sharp and arresting. We are thrust into the ring of a domestic dispute between John (Matthew Connell) and his long-term boyfriend, M…
Friday 30 November, 2018 Liza Dezfouli Bottomless, by Dan Lee, premiered this week at fortyfivedownstairs, where its first reading was held in 2015. Directed by Iain Sinclair, Bottomless, which won the RE Ross Trust Script Development Award in 2014, is a…
Bottomless by Dan Lee Kylie Northover 23 November, 2018 Sitting on Smith Street in Collingwood, actor Jack Charles and playwright Dan Lee are sharing horror stories from their days of addiction. Charles, as famously depicted in the 2008 documentary Bastardy,…
Cameron Woodhead ★★★★★ If you care about acting, rush to see Max Gillies in this Beckett Actor Barry McGovern – one of the world’s leading interpreters of Beckett – told me some years ago the key to performing him…
Cameron Woodhead ★★★½ The KIN Collective stands out on Melbourne’s indie theatre scene. Actor-led ensembles are common enough, but few unite experienced, popular actors (Noni Hazlehurst is a member, as is Marg Downey) with rising talent in the same way…
Monday 20 August 2018 Liza Dezfouli ★★★★ An institution for women set up by Charles Dickens in the 1840s was the inspiration of this production by She Said Theatre. She Said Theatre takes the story of Urania Cottage, a home for…
5 August 2018 Michael Brindley Sneakyville is at once a visceral experience and an intellectual and emotional challenge. It is brilliantly and inventively realised by bold and risk-taking direction, a stark, stripped back aesthetic and a cast capable of astonishing transformations. …
30 November 2017 Cameron Woodhead ★★★★ We've all overheard random conversations in public spaces. Most of us respond with a private smile, a discreet eye roll, perhaps a sympathetic glance or look of alarm. With Earshot, experimental theatre-maker Kate Hunter…
★★★★★ September 8 2017 Maxim Boon Speaking with a friend earlier this week, I shared my excitement about attending the opening of a new production of Angels In America, the first in Melbourne for nearly two and half decades. "That's…
★★★★ September 7 2017 Cameron Woodhead Though Belvoir staged it in Sydney in 2013, Tony Kushner's Angels in America hasn't been performed in Melbourne for 23 years. Having watched this production spread its wings over two consecutive nights, I'm awed…
★★★★★ By: Tim Byrne Tony Kushner's epic 'gay fantasia on national themes' gets the warm, thoroughly human production it deserves It’s difficult to overstate the significance to LGBTQI theatregoers of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. When it premiered in Melbourne…
Des Cowley Monday, 28 August 2017 ★★★★1/2 It seemed apt that Adam Simmons chose to perform his large-scale suite The Usefulness of Art in a space generally devoted to art and theatre, rather than in one of Melbourne’s jazz clubs…
The Age Kate Halfpenny July 28 2017 As a student at an all-girls school in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, Louris van de Geer failed to fit in. Her parents and teachers recommended that she seek professional help. "I wasn't a typical…
Human Frailties Wrapped up in Fur ★★★★ Thursday 6 July Jordan Beth Vincent Directors Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith understand better than most how to set the mood for a show. Their fingerprints are all over the theatre from the outset;…
★★★★ Tim Winton's poetic text is brought to life by Marcel Dorney and the Kin Collective. Image by Glen Wilson Georgia Symons Sunday 28 May, 2017 Last year, 1,290 people died on Australian roads. Their stories are many and varied,…
★★★★1/2 Monday 27 March, 2017 Dilan Gunawardana When ticketholders are forewarned not to wear white clothing to a small-scale production, feelings of trepidation are understandable. The aptly named ‘In Your Face Theatre’ troupe’s Trainspotting condenses Irvine Welsh’s 1993 critically acclaimed…
★★★★ March 26 2017 Cameron Woodhead Dubbed the "poet laureate of the chemical generation", Irvine Welsh came to prominence with Trainspotting in 1993. The novel captured the nihilistic hedonism of the zeitgeist – the '90s were also a high-water mark…
Maxim Boon Thursday 19 January, 2017 4 Stars History is a muddy mingling of fact and fiction - truth warped through the prisms of emotion, bias, and sentimentality. Perhaps the only tangible, uncompromised connection we have to the past is…
Deborah Stone, 1 December 2016 The Gathering of Millenial talent A surprisingly polished new musical bursting with fresh talent shows the value of going 'off-Broadway'. The morning after I attended the opening of this youthful new musical at 45 Downstairs…
Review: The Last Five Years is a tender, passionate and heartbreaking story. Kate Herbert, November 28 2016 BE warned! If you are feeling vulnerable about love lost, then this intimate and poignant musical about the end of a marriage may…
ArtsHub 13 November 2016 Melinda Keyte Rating: four stars out of five One of the many signature gifts the mysterious guide, deviser and solo performer, David Joseph presents at fortyfivedownstairs’ season of Deceptive Threads is that, ’you are the person…
Suzanne Sandow Stage Whispers 3 November 2016 Intrinsic to White Day Dream is a whimsical set by Jennifer Tran made almost entirely of white plastic shopping bags, in fact the plastic bags extend to the auditorium. They are a marvelous…
Cameron Woodhead The Age 10 July 2016 Pumping new world of Retro Futurismus erupts from left field. Brainchild of twins Anni and Maude Davey, the second incarnation of Retro Futurismus rockets into a galaxy of strange new horizons. Between them…
Cameron Woodhead The Age 27 June 2016 A woman, murdered. Dismembered body parts found on goods trains around France – all except the head. The head is never found. Each train passed under one common point: a viaduct near a…
Patricia Di Risio Stage Whispers 27 May 2016 Paul Capsis as the legendary and iconic Quentin Crisp is nothing short of brilliant. His magnificent performance is equally matched by the direction and the staging of Fountain’s sharp and opulent script…