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The Age
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
Melbourne doesn't give up its secrets easily. This festival is delving below its surface
Swingers gave us a free lesson in the feminist history of minigolf, founded in 19th-century Scotland by ladies unamused at being excluded from golf courses (through constricting fashions as much as the misogyny of the age). The more traditional performing arts program held its own, too. International theatre threw up some creative engagement with Shakespeare. Peru's Teatro de la Plaza offered a fierce and joyful deconstruction of Hamlet from an ensemble of actors with Down syndrome, on par with our own Back to Back Theatre, while the experimental UK company Forced Entertainment pared Shakespeare down to the bone, condensing the plots of the Bard's complete works into hour-long episodes, narrated by a single performer using only household items. I found the disarming break-up show Heartbreak Hotel from Aotearoa New Zealand oddly comforting in its curated messiness and was pleased to see some hotly anticipated Australian theatre. The follow-up to Counting and Cracking, S. Shakthidharan's The Wrong Gods, didn't have the same epic sweep as the previous play, but it certainly held the stage with poised intensity. Set in a remote valley in India, this tale of environmental and economic disaster, and resistance to it, laid bare the incommensurable values of global capitalism and indigenous ways of life with dramatic economy and four charismatic performances. It had a gravitas that the hell-bound comedy of cultural collision from Merlynn Tong and Joe Paradise Lui, LEGENDS (of the Golden Arches), did everything in its power to avoid … with flamboyant lo-fi success. Performance from Latin America had been radically underrepresented in Melbourne until Brazilian artist Carolina Bianchi's searing Cadela Força Trilogy (Bitch Power Trilogy) at last year's Rising. That work found a radical companion in Kill Me, from Argentine choreographer Marina Otero – a piece of autobiographical avant-garde dance theatre which transformed naked outrage and mental ill-health into a frenetic carnival of deranged theatricality. Contemporary dance shone as a vehicle for otherwise silenced or inexpressible lived experience. Botis Seva's BLKDOG combined street dance with haunting and vigorous modern choreography, embodying the struggle against abjection in the face of the surreal recursions of childhood trauma. Indigenous resistance was powerfully alive in Joel Bray's MONOLITH, a brilliant work for five women that played with the pareidolia of seeing human figures in ancient rock formations. Starting with hallucinatory living tableaux of bodies slowly writhing and intertwined with each other, suggesting connection between ancestors and Country, the piece shifted to embrace steely defiance in the face of colonialism and discrimination, with an ambiguously symbolic, yet sensual, finale that returned us to a vision of shared humanity over atomised individualism. Our dance critic, Andrew Fuhrmann, gave it five stars. He wasn't wrong. It is impossible to see everything at Rising – I was out almost every night and barely touched the sides of the huge music program – but I did catch Beth Gibbons at Hamer Hall. Best known for her work with trip-hop pioneers Portishead, the ethereal Gibbons held us spellbound with a set from her 2024 solo album and indulged fans with the Portishead classic, Glory Box, at encore. My bucket list is shorter now. Loading No one could deny that Rising has experienced growing pains. It was interrupted by the pandemic, which wreaked havoc on Melbourne , and looked like the awkward child of Dark Mofo and some half-realised international arts festival as it tried to find its feet. It is true, too, that Rising doesn't have the same clear raison d'etre as arts festivals in cities such as Perth or Adelaide. Remote places tend to have bigger and more distinguished festivals out of cultural necessity. Still, in 2025, Melbourne can be proud to embrace a festival that gives every sign of having matured into an assured, aesthetically distinctive and culturally diverse event, with both popular and underground appeal.
Sydney Morning Herald
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Melbourne doesn't give up its secrets easily. This festival is delving below its surface
Swingers gave us a free lesson in the feminist history of minigolf, founded in 19th-century Scotland by ladies unamused at being excluded from golf courses (through constricting fashions as much as the misogyny of the age). The more traditional performing arts program held its own, too. International theatre threw up some creative engagement with Shakespeare. Peru's Teatro de la Plaza offered a fierce and joyful deconstruction of Hamlet from an ensemble of actors with Down syndrome, on par with our own Back to Back Theatre, while the experimental UK company Forced Entertainment pared Shakespeare down to the bone, condensing the plots of the Bard's complete works into hour-long episodes, narrated by a single performer using only household items. I found the disarming break-up show Heartbreak Hotel from Aotearoa New Zealand oddly comforting in its curated messiness and was pleased to see some hotly anticipated Australian theatre. The follow-up to Counting and Cracking, S. Shakthidharan's The Wrong Gods, didn't have the same epic sweep as the previous play, but it certainly held the stage with poised intensity. Set in a remote valley in India, this tale of environmental and economic disaster, and resistance to it, laid bare the incommensurable values of global capitalism and indigenous ways of life with dramatic economy and four charismatic performances. It had a gravitas that the hell-bound comedy of cultural collision from Merlynn Tong and Joe Paradise Lui, LEGENDS (of the Golden Arches), did everything in its power to avoid … with flamboyant lo-fi success. Performance from Latin America had been radically underrepresented in Melbourne until Brazilian artist Carolina Bianchi's searing Cadela Força Trilogy (Bitch Power Trilogy) at last year's Rising. That work found a radical companion in Kill Me, from Argentine choreographer Marina Otero – a piece of autobiographical avant-garde dance theatre which transformed naked outrage and mental ill-health into a frenetic carnival of deranged theatricality. Contemporary dance shone as a vehicle for otherwise silenced or inexpressible lived experience. Botis Seva's BLKDOG combined street dance with haunting and vigorous modern choreography, embodying the struggle against abjection in the face of the surreal recursions of childhood trauma. Indigenous resistance was powerfully alive in Joel Bray's MONOLITH, a brilliant work for five women that played with the pareidolia of seeing human figures in ancient rock formations. Starting with hallucinatory living tableaux of bodies slowly writhing and intertwined with each other, suggesting connection between ancestors and Country, the piece shifted to embrace steely defiance in the face of colonialism and discrimination, with an ambiguously symbolic, yet sensual, finale that returned us to a vision of shared humanity over atomised individualism. Our dance critic, Andrew Fuhrmann, gave it five stars. He wasn't wrong. It is impossible to see everything at Rising – I was out almost every night and barely touched the sides of the huge music program – but I did catch Beth Gibbons at Hamer Hall. Best known for her work with trip-hop pioneers Portishead, the ethereal Gibbons held us spellbound with a set from her 2024 solo album and indulged fans with the Portishead classic, Glory Box, at encore. My bucket list is shorter now. Loading No one could deny that Rising has experienced growing pains. It was interrupted by the pandemic, which wreaked havoc on Melbourne , and looked like the awkward child of Dark Mofo and some half-realised international arts festival as it tried to find its feet. It is true, too, that Rising doesn't have the same clear raison d'etre as arts festivals in cities such as Perth or Adelaide. Remote places tend to have bigger and more distinguished festivals out of cultural necessity. Still, in 2025, Melbourne can be proud to embrace a festival that gives every sign of having matured into an assured, aesthetically distinctive and culturally diverse event, with both popular and underground appeal.
Time Out
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Out
The Spare Room
Many of us try not to think about death too much. Even if it is discussed or thought about, it's considered in the abstract – a distant experience we will deal with someday, maybe later. From beloved Australian novelist Helen Garner, The Spare Room brings the later to now in an unflinchingly raw and brutal confrontation with death. Adapted and directed by Belvoir St Theatre 's artistic director Eamon Flack (Counting and Cracking), these heavy themes are carried with compassion, humour and drama in an evocative performance that lingers long after the final moment. After going through multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, Nicola (Elizabeth Alexander) decides to stay with her old friend Helen (Judy Davis) in Melbourne for three weeks while she undertakes an alternative cancer treatment. From Vitamin C-infused IV drips to sitting naked in 'ozone saunas', these alternative therapies claim to destroy cancer much in the same manner an octopus can break rocks. (Their words, not mine.) The three weeks force both Nicola and Helen to go beyond the platitudes and formalities, and to confront the raw and infuriating experience of both having a terminal illness, and supporting a loved one through it. a provocative portrayal of the communal experience of death The play commences with a profound silence, held by Helen for a moment longer than comfortable. Davis's command and authority are masterfully established in this stillness, and do not falter for the rest of the performance. With skill and precision, Davis is able to balance her character's deeply loving and tender side with the angry and pragmatic. There's an air of Fleabag to her perfectly-timed breakings of the fourth wall. (Perhaps this could be Phoebe Waller-Bridge's next inspiration? There's even a mention of a guinea pig, too!). It's a performance that pulls you in with a stare and refuses to let go. Equally as moving and complex is Alexander's performance, as she juggles the pain of Nicola's cancer journey with her resilience and hope. Alexander embodies a compassionate lens within her characterisation of Nicola, a woman whose unbridled optimism will not be tamed by the prospect of death. The internal conflict between empathising with Nicola and bewilderment at her health decisions deepens the emotional tension, raising questions about agency, denial, and how we choose to face death. The lead duo is supported by a strong ensemble, with Emma Diaz, Alan Dukes and Hannah Waterman morphing seamlessly between the various roles they portray. The characters are enhanced by Mel Page 's lived-incostume design. This narrow snapshot of Nicola and Helen's lives doesn't leave much room for flamboyant and extravagant attire, but the understated costumes speak volumes, grounding each character in authenticity and allowing the actors' performances to take centre stage. The live musical performance from cellist Anthea Cottee (composed by Steve Francis) creates a haunting undertone, foregrounding Nicola's imminent death against the backdrop of her and Helen's humorous quips and day-to-day exasperations. (However, the non-diegetic score at times undermines the naturalistic dialogue, sacrificing realism for an oversaturation of rhythmic dread.) In translating Garner's novel for the stage, Flack manipulates dramatic time in order to craftily build on the themes frustration and sacrifice. The almost two-hour runtime (with no intermission) coupled with the (intentionally curated) dragging pace and Paul Jackon 's lighting design (a poetic exploration of the passage of time) allows the audience to experience Helen's impatience and fury in real time. From the longer days to the struggling nights with Nicola, you don't just grow to empathise with Helen – her frustration becomes your own. In collapsing the distance between character and audience, Flack reminds us that this story isn't only about the dying, but about those left to care for them. The Spare Room is a confronting yet artistic meditation on dying and death. Although occasionally slowed down by its own weight, it is a provocative portrayal of the communal experience of death. The play doesn't try to soften the reality of death, but instead offers a moment of clarity, encouraging us to sit with the discomfort just a little longer than we might usually allow ourselves to.
Time Out
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
The Wrong Gods
What does it take to choose your values and beliefs over those of others, and to fight for them? What does it take for a woman to be defiant – to go against what is expected of her, and perhaps even go against her own family? Fresh off an international tour of his critically-acclaimed three-hour epic Counting and Cracking (which included a special sold-out season at Sydney's Carriageworks), S. Shakthidharan returns to the Belvoir stage with another powerful chapter of South Asian history. Detouring from the grand scale of Counting and Cracking and Shakthidharan's follow-up show, The Jungle and the Sea, this restrained 90-minute fable is told through the perspectives of four defiant women, each of them shaped by differing values, ideologies, survival and sacrifice. The Wrong Gods is a work of protest – it's angry, sad, and deeply unsettled by the relentlessness of capitalism The Wrong Gods imagines the protests surrounding the controversial Narmada Valley dam project. Initiated in the late 1980s, the dam is one of the world's largest hydropower infrastructure projects. It was intended to supply electricity and drinking water to three Indian states, but its legacy is fraught – thousands of indigenous people and villagers were displaced, ecosystems were irreversibly altered and damaged, and the project remains at the centre of sustained protests. Nirmala (Nadie Kammallaweera, who appeared in both Counting and Cracking and The Jungle and the Sea) a farmer and the head of the village's council, has spent her life with the soil. She worships one of the old gods (the river), understands the ways of the water, cooks with the seeds and spices from the edge of the forest, and knows how to farm sustainably with the land. Recently abandoned by her husband, she takes her daughter Isha (Radhika Mudaliyar, Counting and Cracking) out of school to help her maintain the farm. Encouraged by her teacher, Miss Devi (Manali Datar, Fangirls), Isha dreams of leaving the village (and the man she is betrothed to) to become a scientist. When Lakshmi (Vaishnavi Suryaprakash; Nayika: A Dancing Girl, Counting and Cracking) arrives in the village – a persuasive, middle-class Indian woman who appears local but works on behalf of powerful American developers – Nirmala is tested. Lakshmi truly believes that Nirmala is a slave to the land and deserves to cash in on the Indian government's corporate plans. She convinces her, with the help of Isha, to trial a genetically modified seed – crops that are promoted as offering high yields with minimal labour. From here begins the clash of the creeds. But as nature often shows us, everything comes at a cost. The village way of life is beautifully evoked on Keerthi Subramanyam 's sustainably constructed set, where artistry meets intention. Stone bricks spiral across the floor in circular patterns, echoing nature's eternal rhythms. These are complemented by intricately carved, cave-like walls bathed in gentle, purposeful lighting by Amelia Lever-Davidson. The circular motif, used with restraint and purpose by Shakthidharan and co-director Hannah Goodwin (, Never Closer), becomes a subtle yet powerful symbol of shifting power dynamics; the blocking around the circle subtly reveals each character's shifting allegiances and personal frustrations. Each of the four actors deftly navigates Shakthidharan's empathic dialogue to present their case. Suryaprakash is particularly compelling as a multi-faceted antagonist, offering a performance that is both subtle and direct, peeling back layers to reveal her character's simmering motivations. Datar brings an earnest warmth to the role of the outsider-turned-ally, making her presence felt even in quieter moments; her odd-couple camaraderie with Kammallaweera is especially endearing. Mudaliyer infuses Isha with naive, youthful optimism that is instantly recognisable – anyone who has ever dreamed big will see themselves in her. Kammallaweera's performance is often weighted with rage, which at times risks coming off as one-dimensional. However, it is in her moments of stillness that she truly captivates – her quiet reflection on what so-called progress has cost her moved me to tears, and evoked a longing for a simpler life. The minimalist production and small ensemble give Shakthidharan's script space to breathe. As in his previous plays, he excels at examining history from multiple perspectives with dialogue that is rich, evocative and unflinching in its portrayal of the tensions between power, profit and social responsibility. Still, I found myself missing the signature wit that infused his previous work with charm. At its core, The Wrong Gods is a work of protest – it's angry, sad, and deeply unsettled by the relentlessness of capitalism. Yet, it struggles to strike a balance between education and emotional resonance. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but at times, the seams of this particular book fray under the weight of its own urgency. In the play's earnest effort to give voice to those who have long been silenced, it occasionally sacrifices the one thing that sustains resistance: hope.
