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By Ben Neutze
Michele Lee’s new play Rice is a complex narrative concoction, combining broad political questions about race, power, socioeconomic classes in Australia, international food politics, and labour. But its focus is on two women who find an unlikely connection: the young Indian-Australian work-obsessed Executive Officer Nisha (Kristy Best) and the older Chinese-Australian Yvette (Hsiao-Ling Tang), who cleans Nisha’s
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By Ben Neutze
In 2007, tenor Alfie Boe and musical theatre star Michael Ball appeared together in an English National Opera production of the classic musical Kismet, now famous for being particularly awful. It might well have been a low point in both of their careers — the London Evening Standard declared “A terrible fate should befall this Kismet” — but it
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By Ben Neutze
Melbourne Festival this week revealed its 2017 program, with one of the most significant works of live performance of the decade at its centre. Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music is a 24-hour journey through popular music and the history of America, from 1776 through to today, performed by the legendary New York cabaret artist. The Pulitzer
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By Ben Neutze
Last night’s Helpmann Awards were thoroughly endured by all in attendance. The ceremony, which recognises live performance in almost every form (from ballet, to contemporary music, to stand-up comedy, to opera, to musical theatre), is typically a marathon event. Thankfully, the ceremony ran pretty much to time (three hours, straight through), and there were some
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By Ben Neutze
There’s a significant number of people from my generation — people who grew up in the late 1990s — who are able to hold almost complete conversations through quotes from The Simpsons. There’s another handful of people who can do so with Seinfeld quotes, and many, like me, who are able to recite near-complete episodes of Friends. These three sitcoms hold
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By Ben Neutze
For the last five or so years, the traditional US broadcast season (generally kicking off in late September) has suffered sharply decreasing influence. With the rise of streaming video on demand services (SVOD), the major commercial networks have taken a significant ratings hit, and have found it more difficult to compete when it comes to awards
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By Ben Neutze
The Helpmann Awards ceremony is the Australian live performance industry’s night of nights, and a typically star-studded event. But one star shone unexpectedly brightly last year: Jan van de Stool, a beloved Dutch musical therapist, and close personal acquaintance and mentor of cabaret and musical theatre star Queenie van de Zandt. Jan has extensive experience
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By Ben Neutze
Sometimes the brightest and most joyous of art springs out of some pretty tough times. The Golden Age of Hollywood broke through right at the end of the Great Depression, and Australia and the US were both facing difficult social tensions when disco music became a musical and cultural sensation in the mid-1970s. “When disco happened, things were pretty
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By Ben Neutze
The ABC has a new homegrown medical drama premiering this week called Pulse. If your reaction to this news is a decisive “so what?”, you’re probably not alone. And if you chose to stop reading this review after that first sentence, I can hardly blame you. If you’re choosing to stick by, here’s the crux of Pulse, inspired by a true
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By Ben Neutze
Louis Nowra’s first play in a decade — the final part of the ‘Lewis Trilogy’, following on from Cosi and Summer of the Aliens — is called This Much is True, and is inspired by the characters of the Woolloomooloo pub Nowra has frequented for the last nine years. But exactly how much of the play is actually true is hardly the point.
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