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: The Secret River

by Andrew Bovell

from the novel by Kate Grenville

Composer Iain Grandage

The Sydney Theatre Company

Directed by Neil Armfield

Artistic Associate Stephen Page

Designer Stephen Curtis

With Nathaniel Dean, Bailey Doomadgee, Lachlan Elliott, Kamil Ellis, Roy Gordon, Iain Grandage, Ethel-Anne Gundy, Anita Hegh, Daniel Henshall, Trevor Jamieson, Rhimi Johnson Page, Judith McGrath, Callum McManis, Colin Moody, Rory Potter, Jeremy Sims, James Slee, Bruce Spence, Matthew Sunderland, Miranda Tapsell, Tom Usher, Ursula Yovich

 His Majesty’s Theatre

Until March 2

The journey of a well-loved story from page to stage is a treacherous one, with the expectations of both its audiences – readers and theatre-goers – to be met, and the vasty fields of the original to be somehow crammed within the theatre’s wooden O.

The Secret River, with its description of early colonial society and the fatal clash of people and cultures in our far-from-terra nullius has deeply affected those who have read it.

The tears I saw last night in the audience were, I’m sure, from readers whose emotional investment in the book had been realised on stage. I haven’t, and can only leave the truth of that to them.