Theatre: Latitudes (★★)

By Mark Walsh
Directed by Mikala Westall
Designed by Patrick Howe
Sound design Will Slade
Lighting design Chris Donnelly
Performed by Tessa Carmody, Jo Morris and Claire Munday
Until February 21


I have an aversion to plays – Peter Shaffer’s Equus comes quickly to mind – that insist on explaining themselves to you. No such accusation can be levelled at Mark Walsh’s Latitudes (at the Blue Room, directed by Mikala Westall).
It’s an opaque, convoluted affair that, despite strong performances and an impressive creative team, defied my best efforts to untangle.


Read the complete review in The West Australian.

Theatre: Playhouse Creatures

By April de Angelis

Her Infinite Variety Ensemble

Directed by Helen Doig

Performed by Tiffany Barton, Rhoda Lopez, Angelique Malcolm, Claire Munday and Summer Williams

The Guild Studio

Until June 8

Tiffany Barton, Angelique Malcolm
and Summer Williams

The British playwright April de Angelis’s Playhouse Creatures is the best kind of historical drama. Firmly based on, but not bound by, real events and characters, it illuminates an era without either lecturing or tutoring.

It's a perfect choice for the all-female Her Infinite Variety Ensemble (HIVE), whose charter is to create opportunities for women in theatre. Beyond its obvious advantages – five strong roles for actresses – it deals with the most elemental opportunity for women in the theatre; the right to be in it at all, which, on the English stage at least, only came a few years before, in 1660. 
To their credit, they’ve had the initiative to turn a disused room in the old Equity Guild building in Claisebrook into a pop-up theatre. It’s fairly rough and ready, and only seats forty, but this instructive and richly entertaining production deserves to fill them. 

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian