Theatre: The Cat in the Box

by Vivienne Glance

directed by Mark Barford

With James Helm, Summer Williams, Anna Brockway and Kingsley Judd

Blue Room Theatre

31 July – 18 August

James Helm and Summer Williams

Vivienne Glance’s little absurdist thriller The Cat in the Box has its roots very squarely in the 1970s, but that doesn’t make it less entertaining or provocative.

The set-up is familiar territory – four very different people find themselves locked in a room with no way of escape and precious little to survive on. How they survive, and how the political microcosm in the room forms and plays out, is the stuff of the play.

There’s nothing particularly innovative or radical about Glance’s ideas – we’ve seen them before, but they are refreshed by the quality of her writing, which is sharp, funny and rarely portentous.

There’s nothing in The Cat in the Box to change the world, but as an entertainment, and a theatrical undertaking, it has much to recommend it.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Anytown

By Hellie Turner

Directed by Janet Pettigrew

Featuring Kingsley Judd, Whitney Richards, Gaynor O’Hare, Matt Penny, Craig Williams and Cathy Lally

Blue Room Theatre

May 10 – 28, 2011

Anytown sits out on the flat and seethes. The little town of a blow-in or two and 900-odd people named Willis bury their dead and dig up their dirt, air their grievances and their dirty linen, and drink from bottomless cups of tea. There’s one road in and one road out of Anytown, and precious few people take either.

Whitney Richards and Craig Williams

In the house of the town cop Charlie and his wife Bella Willis (Matt Penny and Gaynor O’Hare), their delicious sixteen-year-old Dixie (Whitney Richards) hatches her plots. Dixie is a born sexual manipulator; she’s inherited her mother’s carnal allure, but none of her sweetness or resignation. She’s entirely unscrupulous, and entirely indiscriminate, tormenting the mute town boy Paulie (one of several roles played by by Craig Williams) and their scabrous Scottish lodger Angus (Kingsley Judd).

Angus, though, shares a secret with Bella who, in turn, is keeping something from both him and her husband. It’s that kind of town

When a dark stranger (Williams again) appears, bringing with him something mysterious in a hatbox, he represents the chance of escape for Dixie. She goes to work on him, but, for the first time in her life, it just might be her that’s being done over.