Theatre: Macbeth

by William Shakespeare

 Class Act

Directed by Stephen Lee

With Nick Maclaine, Rhoda Lopez, Angelique Malcolm, Shirley Van Sanden, Kyle Sargon, Daniel Buckle, Stephen Lee and Patrick Whitelaw

Subiaco Arts Centre Studio

Until September 14; then in schools

When you watch Shakespeare performed for students, the immortal power of his language most impresses you: “one fell swoop”, “the milk of human kindness” and the “poison’d chalice”, everything that follows that “damned spot” and “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” all come from Macbeth.

Class Act has produced an unpatronising, economical Macbeth for high school students. If its audience (which, by the way, was immaculately attentive throughout the performance I saw) can take these words and ideas away with it, and know from whence they came, that’s a treasure beyond reckoning.

Theatre: Ghosts

By Henrik Ibsen

Class Act Theatre

Directed by Stephen Lee

Performed by Whitney Richards, David Meadows, Graham Mitchell, Angelique Malcolm and Andrew Southern

Subiaco Arts Centre Studio

Until November 3

Who’s afraid of Henrik Ibsen? All that Lutheran hand-wringing. All that rain.

Certainly the audiences that trampled over each other to see Greta Scacchi in Aarne Neeme’s 1991 production of A Doll’s House overcame their qualms, and this production of Ibsen’s Ghosts, in the same building, deserves an audience as well.

Not that it quite justifies trampling; this is a modestly staged production, given a workmanlike rather than inspired treatment by director Stephen Lee, but there’s enough quality on show to make for a worthy evening’s entertainment.

Theatre: Noises Off

By Michael Frayn

Knuts Theatre

Directed by Stephen Lee

With Ian Bolgia, Melissa Kiiveri, Angelique Malcolm, David Meadows, Graham Mitchell, Claire Munday, Adam T Perkins, Shirley Van Sanden and Summer Williams

Camelot Theatre, Mosman Park

1 – 12 May 2012

Shirley Van Sanden and Melissa Kiiveri

Michael Frayn’s celebrated Noises Off is, in many respects, a victim of its own fame. Thirty years on, it’s a hit whenever it gets a worthy production (a much-admired revival is currently running on the West End), but it has often suffered at the hands of directors and casts attracted by its veneer of broad humour – and deliberately cheap and nasty production values – but unable to manage its technical intricacies and subtleties.

I went to the Camelot Theatre in Mosman Park for the debut production the Knuts Theatre Company with some trepidation. Happily, though, this Noises Off was confidently handled and genuinely funny.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian