Theatre: Benjamin and Me (★★)

Whiskey + Boots
Written, directed and performed by Mark Storen
Illustrated by Jacinta Larcombe

Blue Room Theatre
Until October 24

You’d be forgiven for imagining that a show called Benjamin and Me about a boy and his dog would be a sweet, whimsical story of friendship and loyalty. Probably sentimental, perhaps a little sad. With an adventure thrown in.
You certainly get the adventure, a breakneck, seesawing tale of flying machines, mind-robbing villains and feline heroines, lost tribes and menacing hyenas, but any whimsy or sentimentality it might have had gets lost beneath the action.
As for the sadness – I can’t go into detail, but there really should be lots – I’m afraid you are left with neither the time nor energy to feel it.
If the kids in the performance I saw were a little quiet and dazed, it’s probably because there was little left for them to do.

Read the complete review in The West Australian 

Theatre: The Song Was Wrong (★★)

Jacinta Larcombe and George Shevtsov

Perth Theatre Company
Written and directed by Melissa Cantwell
Music composed and performed by Nick Wales
Set Design by Bruce McKinven
Sound design by Ben Collins
Lighting design by Matthew Marshall
Featuring Astrid Grant, Felix Jozeps, Jacinta Larcombe, Sarah Nelson, Thomas Papathanassiou, George Shevtsov
STC Studio until June 20

The Perth Theatre Company has put some significant runs on the board since it became the junior tenant of the State Theatre Centre in 2011, based on smart programming and some astute partnerships with independent companies like Weeping Spoon and Side Pony forged by its artistic director, Melissa Cantwell.
Cantwell has also demonstrated that she is a sharp, inventive director, often delivering productions with greater contemporary appeal than PTC’s larger upstairs neighbour, Black Swan.
But the company’s latest and most ambitious project, The Song Was Wrong, is a significant misstep.
New work needed to be tested, next door at the Blue Room or elsewhere – as many of PTT’s previous properties have been – before being given a full main stage production. It’s disconcerting that such a process wasn’t followed in this case.

Go to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid

Houston Sinclair

Directed by Ian Sinclair

Devised and performed by Georgia King, Jacinta Larcombe and Ben Gill

The Blue Room Theatre

Until September 7

The earlier of the Blue Room’s Scandinavian double feature is a tricky, erotically charged inversion of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Little Mermaid.

In this version, the mermaid (Jacinta Larcombe) is a teenage girl in an Australian coastal town. She’s a castaway in the small society around her. Her only company, apart from her mother (Georgia King), is the picture of Leonardo DiCaprio above her bed. Then she meets a boy (Ben Gill) who befriends her and invites her to his party. In return, she takes him down to the sea.

Her mother wants to relive her belle-of-the-ball youth vicariously through her daughter, but when reminiscence becomes too too solid flesh, the consequences are heartbreaking and tragic.

Link here to my complete review of The Little Mermaid in The West Australian.