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In 1843, German philosopher Karl Marx famously wrote that “religion is the opium of the people”. So, does religion exist to assuage the tough times? Photos by Cassidy Cogin But so much about it can’t be explained. It just is. Think of a virgin birth for starters. And then how do you deal with the untold misery in the world. Need I go on? In short, religion has a lot to answer for. All these thoughts came flooding into my mind as I was watching the well-conceived an

While growing up, I was captivated by subversive stories in a classic cartoon segment known as Fractured Fairy Tales. That aired as part of the TV series The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. It turned familiar yarns about the likes of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and many others on their head. Photos by Parenthesy All these years later, one of my all-time favourite theatre companies, Shake & Stir, has done the same, now featuring real flesh and bl

Did you know that the first recorded women’s cricket match in Australia took place at the Bendigo Easter Fair on 7th April, 1874? It was a charity event organised between two teams of 11 players – labelled the Blues and the Reds – by 19-year-old schoolteacher Barbara Rae. Photos by Mary Steuten Her father, John, was headmaster of Rae’s Ironbark School and a keen cricket fan. Barbara acted as match secretary, was in charge of recruiting players and captained the Blues’ te

The drama. The pathos. Melbourne Opera’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore sizzles and crackles with feeling. With an empty stage, save for a simple wooden platform, it is left to the performers, with the aid of the odd prop, to do the heavy lifting and they do so with distinction. It is an emotion charged story of love and vengeance, and the leads grab that mindset with relish and run with it. Photos by Robin Halls In fact, there are many scenes in which I was

Bold and bawdy, provocateur extraordinaire Moira Finucane has been turning heads with her fierce brand of variety for 30 years. To mark the auspicious occasion, she is back with a new offering, marking the reopening of Luna Park’s iconic Luna Palace. Photos by Angel WL Think music – popular, mellow and operatic – dance and striptease. I speak of the erotic and the exotic, as the bubbles flow and the hot chips sizzle. The heaving crowd on opening night was certainly out

A superb showcase of future musical talent, Patrick School of the Arts’ presentation of Carrie: The Musical is a beauty. There are so many talented performers in the 18 strong cast, all drawn from third year musical theatre students at the school. Photos by Ben Fon Based on Stephen King’s debut novel, integrating elements of the 1976 supernatural horror film starring Sissy Spacek in the title role, it is the story of a school outcast. Carrie White doesn’t fit in. The 17-y

Scheming and passion abound in Melbourne Shakespeare Company’s Cleopatra & Antony. Based on the Shakespearean tragedy Antony and Cleopatra, written about 1606, it concerns power and politics, but is a deeply personal story. Set during the final years of the Roman Republic, the 13-strong cast throws itself headlong into the desire and subterfuge that drive the plotting. Photos by Nick Mick Pics (@nickmickpics) Melbourne Shakespeare Company’s focus is clearly on the volatil

Inspired by fact, a significant moral dilemma confronts actors in a small amateur theatre company five days before opening night. While the performers must decide whether to proceed with the show, they are not the only ones with a difficult choice to make. Photos by Pooja Sathish In a juicy twist, we, the audience, too, become heavily invested in the outcome, as it is not just the actors who pass judgment. The work of actor Brian Vriends (All Saints) and criminal defence

The massive impact of the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983 – 2009) on one family is brought into sharp focus in the incendiary play The Jungle and the Sea. It is a moving follow up to S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack’s highly acclaimed Counting and Cracking, which played at Union Theatre in June 2024. It is 1995 and Amma (Anandavalli) and Appa (Prakash Belawadi) live in Jaffna, in northern Sri Lanka, with their four children. Photos by Pia Johnson They have three daughters, La

Show Boat (1927) was probably the starting point for what is known as the Golden Age of Broadway. That was when the narrative and the music in musicals first came together cohesively. But it took a further decade for that style of show to really take off. I speak of song and dance integrated into plot and character development. Some of the more famous musicals of that era included Oklahoma! (1943), Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949) and Guys and Dolls (1950). That i

Displacement, cultural identity, colonisation and shifty adoption practices are in the firing line in Chenturan Aran’s compelling dramatic comedy Cut Chilli. The writer himself was culturally displaced with his parents by the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983-2009) and subsequent research and interviews informed the script. Cut Chilli was inspired by pervasive adoption fraud in Sri Lanka. Photos by Sarah Walker It concerns a young Sri Lankan-born man named Jamie (Indra Liyanaar

It starts with a spoken quote from a voice that sounds like German filmmaker Werner Herzog about how stupid chickens are and how easy they are to hypnotise. Thereafter follows an actor walking down the middle stairs at Fairfax Studio with a serious expression on his face carrying a rubber chicken. When he reaches the stage, he squawks and the lighting fades to black. We know we are in for a riotous political satire, an adaptation of George Orwell’s classic Russian alleg

As a proud, passionate and paid-up member of the Essendon Football Club, I do not want to win another match this season. Why? Because I would like access to the very best draft capital. So, does tanking exist in the glorious game of AFL football? Despite what the AFL would like you to believe, blood oath it does. Photos by Gavin D. Andrew Rest players, play them out of position, get games into young kids, send those with niggles in for surgery before the season is over. Y

The call went out to those who were needy, lonely, lovelorn and sleepless to leave messages between midnight and 6am and it was answered emphatically. The result is a compelling aural experience, which provides an insight into Melbourne after hours. Photos by Simon Fazio The work of renowned documentary specialist Roslyn Oades, who directs, and ARIA-award winning sound artist Bob Scott, The Nightline is experiential theatre. It takes place over 35 minutes and 33 seconds.

They have gone back to the well and the result is every bit as impressive as it was first time around (which was three years ago). I speak of Anthony Lapaglia, Alison Whyte and Josh Helman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, one of the finest plays of the 20th century. Photos by Jeff Busby It won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play in the same year. It is an incendiary look at the American Dream, which relates to the opportunity for in

A mother’s desire to see her daughter escape from a good for nothing, small-town, working-class existence drives the fierce drama Break of Day. She (Pam – Kat Stewart) had aspirations too when she was her daughter, Rae’s (Sherry-Lee Watson) age – 17. But that was the year she gave birth to Rae and the die was cast. Photos by Pia Johnson Now, to try to make ends meet, she pulls 12-hour overnight shifts packing boxes for a global online retailer an hour away. Still, she cont

Imagine turning a break-in at the British Museum in London into a compelling rock musical. Well – it has happened. And, I am not just talking about any run of the mill heist either. Rather, it is about stealing back stuff that didn’t belong there in the first instance. Photos by Rebecca Elliott So it is that Artefact (or, Repatriation: The Musical) is about cultural ownership and decolonisation. A group of passionate individuals, driven by outrage, tried this (I am talk

If theatre of the absurd tickles your fancy, you will have a field day with theatre company Pummel Squad’s Marginalia. It is a new play adapted from Nikolai Gogol’s 1936 satirical short story ‘The Nose’. That was about a St Petersburg official who awakens to find his proboscis has disappeared and taken on a life of its own. Photos by Nick Robertson The controversial text was censored at the time for its skewering of Russian politics and its exploration of vanity and poli

Imagine making an occult-driven musical from the misfortune of a group of high school children losing their lives in a tragic Big Dipper incident. Your first reaction would surely be how dreadfully inappropriate, downright maudlin and an act of moral turpitude. And yet that is what Canadian writers and composers Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell have done, employing a darkly comedic bent. Richmond’s seed of an idea was to dramatise an accident. He had met Maxwell, who

With the reason only revealed late in the piece, global superstar Neil Diamond is presented as a tortured soul in the superbly written, directed and produced musical A Beautiful Noise. Aggressive and recalcitrant, an older Diamond (played by Terence Crawford) is in therapy, pushed to undertake soul searching by his third wife, Katie. Incidentally, while no actor plays Katie in the show, to wide applause on opening night, the real Katie, who had flown over from the US, app