Ruth McIver looks at an authentic, all male performance of Henry IV and wonders where the heart has gone.
What do you get when you take an all male production of…
Ruth McIver discovers that Juliet rulz in Zoey Dawson's all-female, contemporary take on Romeo and Juliet.
Juliet has always played second fiddle to the moony Romeo. In this all female production,…
Ruth McIver immerses herself in the world of Edwardian serial murder, betrayal and bigamy, with Turtle Lab's production of The Drowning Girls.
The Drowning Girls is a cautionary tale told by…
Get your mind out of the Gutter. Eternal romantic Ruth McIver undertakes a February fast of a different kind. And it's going to be an all year long, if not…
Mexico's Day of the Dead sounds kind of depressing but Vanessa Roberts discovers that despite all those skeletons it really is a celebration of family love.
The woman with the crinkled…
The humble pair of tweezers seems an unlikely candidate for Best Invention Ever. Caitlin Crowley explains her dedication to her handy little pluckers.
If I flick back through my diary there…
Television can be a baffling medium but Geoff Parkes invites legendary detective Hercule Poirot to unravel some of the more annoying mysteries of the small screen.
Ever since Agatha Christie shuffled…
Ruth McIver discovers that Snowtown invokes a very visceral response in the viewer. So much so, that at an early screening, one audience member was led out by a paramedic.
It could…
Two dead chooks plus one angry neighbour and Lucy Graham must concede that her dog Pedro has developed a taste for the neighbour’s pets. But should Pedro really be in the…
Not only is East West 101 a cracking good show but it serves to shift perceptions of Muslims away from tired stereotypes. Geoff Parkes considers how the commercial TV networks…
What do you get when you take an all male production of Henry IV and strip it back to its bare bones – no fancy props, no conceptual quirks, postmodern bells or whistles? Well, you get a pretty authentic and unreconstructed glance at what Shakespeare would have been like in the days of Globe. Add about a sixty or so sighing Year Twelve students who have been dragged along as part of a school group because it’s on the syllabus and you’ve got your groundlings.
Dawson and her cast have definitely drawn upon Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, from the appropriation of pop culture and contemporary costuming to musical breakouts and like Luhrmann have created a colourful and self reflexive postmodern Shakespearian world. Hell, there’s even an impromptu choreographed performance of Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream. While Carolyn Butler sexes it up as Juliet’s nurse in a hot pink mini, Romeo dons a flanno…
“Undressed, undone, and underwater, all in a matter of months”, the three women re-enact their respective whirlwind romances, marriages and murders with an emotional spectrum ranging from girlish glee, to raw anger and inimitable pain. Donning their wedding dresses and white stockings, sisterly solidarity makes the women gloriously vocal, vengeful, bawdy and brash as they accuse and condemn the man who stole everything from them – including their lives…
I blame Pat Benatar, 80s power ballads and all the John Hughes movies. I blame TV sitcoms, Johnny Cash, Betty Blue and Tolstoy. I blame romantic poetry and all of the nineteenth century novels I’ve ever read to evidence that love is a burning thing.
Mexico’s Day of the Dead sounds kind of depressing but Vanessa Roberts discovers that despite all those skeletons it really is a celebration of family love.
The woman with the crinkled eyes gives me a smile as she writes my name on the skeleton’s forehead. I had never eaten my own skull before. The sounds of Salsa ricochet down streets, paper bones waft and sugar skulls cost a dollar – a bargain. It is the Day of the Dead in Mixquic, Mexico and my brain is delicious.
San Andrés Mixquic (Mis-kick), two …
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