Theatre: Storm Boy (★★★★½)

By Tom Holloway
from the novel by Colin Thiele
Barking Gecko and Sydney Theatre Company
Directed by John Sheedy
Designed by Michael Scott-Mitchell
Lighting design by Damien Cooper
Sound design by Kingsley Reeve
Puppetry directed by Peter Wilson
Performed by Otis Pavlovic (alternating with Kai Lewins), Jimi Bani, Julian Garner, Anthony Mayor and Phil Dean Walford
Heath Ledger Theatre
Until July 11

Barking Gecko and the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Colin Thiele’s Storm Boy, the much-loved children’s story that has been sensitively and economically adapted for the stage by Tom Holliday, makes a short but welcome return to the Heath Ledger Theatre for the first week of the school holidays.
It features an entirely new cast from the original 2013 production, but its strengths and virtues are entirely intact.
This production is a final encore for Barking Gecko’s former artistic director John Sheedy. There’s no doubt about the legacy of creativity and ambition he’s left to our exceptional theatre company for young people.

I reviewed Storm Boy in its first Perth season in 2013, and this review of its return season inevitably contains some self-plagiarism! Link here for the complete version of this review, and here for the original 2013 review, both in The West Australian. 

Opera: The Rabbits

Barking Gecko and Opera Australia
Book by John Marsden and Shaun Tan
Adapted and directed by John Sheedy
Composed by Kate Miller-Heidke
Libretto by Lally Katz
Musical director and arranger Iain Grandage
Designed by Gabriela Tylesova
Lighting designer Trent Suidgeest
Sound designer Michael Waters

Performed by Kate Miller-Heidke, Hollie Andrew, Jessica Hitchcock, Lisa Maza, Marcus Corowa, David Leha, Kanen Breen, Nicholas Jones, Christopher Hillier, Simon Meadow and Robert Mitchell
Music by Iain Grandage, Callum G’Froerer, Kier Nuttall, Veronique Serrett and Dan Witton

Heath Ledger Theatre
Until February 16

(★ ★ ★ ½)

We’ve recently seen major stage treatments of the pivotal event in the history of our continent, the collision of its indigenous inhabitants with European colonisers. Now we have The Rabbits.
In the book upon which it is based, John Marsden and Shaun Tan parallel the overrunning of native animals by introduced species with the inexorable spread of colonising humans across the continent.
Perth’s Barking Gecko and Opera Australia are a natural combination to bring The Rabbits to the stage, and the result is very largely successful.
For all of us, the terrible story buried before and beneath our entitled lives needs telling and retelling, and The Rabbits, despite some flaws, is a significant contributor to that process.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian
  

Theatre: ONEFIVEZEROSEVEN

By Suzie Miller
Barking Gecko Theatre Company
Directed and designed by John Sheedy
Choreographer Danielle Micich
Featuring Harrison Elliott, Mohammed-Adel Berrached, Rikki Bremner, Toby Derrick, Yilin Kong, Jacinta Larcombe
The Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre
February 22 – March 1

Our political parties would do well to dig deep into Suzie Miller’s ONEFIVEZEROSEVEN for a glimpse into the lives and opinions of the next generation of voters and leaders.
As they did two years ago in Driving into Walls, Miller and Sheedy use young performers who are primarily dancers to represent these kids and their thoughts. They are also strong actors, and the result is more nuanced than its predecessor.
ONEFIVEZEROSEVEN is also far more optimistic and, I suspect, more representative of what’s happening for most young people.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Storm Boy

By Tom Holloway
from the novel by Colin Thiele
Barking Gecko and Sydney Theatre Company
Directed by John Sheedy
Designed by Michael Scott-Mitchell
Lighting design by Damien Cooper
Sound design by Kingsley Reeve
Puppetry directed by Peter Wilson
Performed by Joshua Challenor (alternating with Rory Potter), Trevor Jamieson, Peter O’Brien, Michael Smith and Shaka Cook
Heath Ledger Theatre
Until October 5

Mr Percival with Michael Smith

It's all but instinctive to insert "the much-loved" before the title, Storm Boy. Colin Thiele's novel of loneliness, love and the hard truths of growing up is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and is constantly being rediscovered by new generations of kids, in classrooms and libraries (it has never been out of print), on film and the stage.

This ambitious, heartfelt co-production will do nothing but enhance its popularity and reputation.
This paper has described Barking Gecko as Perth's most exciting theatre company; it is, and it is also our most ambitious. Their work over the past couple of years has gone to a new level of creativity and production quality, thrilling for their young audiences, and fulfilling for their parents (and grandparents). The scope of the productions it has in the pipeline, in partnership with the Sydney Opera House, Opera Australia and the world's premiere stage company, Britain's National Theatre, is astonishing. 
It's like the Dockers making the grand final.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Hamlet

William Shakespeare

Barking Gecko Theatre Company
Performed by WAAPA Third Year Acting students

Directed by John Sheedy

Designed by Patrick James Howe

Sound design by James Luscombe

Subiaco Arts Centre

Until March 22

James Sweeny and Grace Smibert

John Sheedy’s fresh, energised Hamlet shows its hand early. In its opening tableau, orderlies mop a bleak institutional common room, with its linoleum floor, green wall tiles and neon strip lighting. Mantovani’s saccharine, soothing ’50s hit, Charmaine, is playing. A green, illuminated hospital sign on the wall reads Helsingør. When Hamlet appears, he’s in dressing gown and trackpants, a patient’s tag on his wrist.

Now where have we heard that tune before? Where have we seen that room? Where have we seen this damaged prince?

Such direct and pervasive evocations (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, with a more than passing nod to Marat/Sade) might rankle. In this case, though, they work so well and consistently that, unusually for referential treatments like this, they liberate rather than bind the action and the performances.

In both its own terms, and those it was designed to achieve, it succeeded entirely.  

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian 

Theatre: Driving Into Walls

By Suzie Miller

Barking Gecko Theatre Company

Directed and designed by John Sheedy

Featuring Harrison Elliott, Michael Smith, Rikki Bremner, Thalia Livingstone and Matthew Tupper

The Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre

February 25 – March 3

pic: Jon Green

Last year, I called another show about alienated youth in Western Australia, Reg Cribb’s The Damned, memorable and unlovely, and that’s also an apt description of John Sheedy and Suzie Miller’s collaboration on Driving into Walls.

Cribb’s essentially fictional story drew on a number of real-life stories from around Australia, while Driving into Walls is the result of interviews and workshop exercises with 500 young people from around the state. It tells their private stories, about the perils and pitfalls of 21st century life for young people, in their own words.