Theatre: Glengarry Glenn Ross (★★★★)

Will O'Mahony and Peter Rowsthorn

by David Mamet
Black Swan State Theatre Company
Directed by Kate Cherry

Designed by Richard Roberts
With Luke Hewitt, Ben Mortley, Will O’Mahony, Kenneth Ransom, Peter Rowsthorn, Steve Turner and Damian Walshe-Howling

Heath Ledger Theatre
Until June 14

Once again Kate Cherry and Black Swan show the appetite and aptitude for the late 20th Century American theatre canon that made Laughter on the 23rd Floor the hit of their 2014 season.
Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet’s hugely influential drama of venality and the despairing criminality it breeds, might not have the irresistible exuberance of Neil Simon’s memoir, but it shares its energy and masterful use of language. Cherry’s vigorous, uncomplicated staging, supported by a talented, finely balanced cast, does justice to it in this impressive production at the Heath Ledger.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian 

Theatre: A Streetcar Named Desire

Written by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Kate Cherry
Designed by Christina Smith
Sound designer and composer Ben Collins
With Ben D’Addario, Nathaniel Dean, Callum Fletcher, Luke Hewitt, Michael Loney, Rhoda Lopez, Jo Morris, Sigrid Thornton, Steve Turner, Alison van Reeken and Irma Woods

Black Swan State Theatre Company 
Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre
Extended to April 11

There’s no doubt about A Streetcar Named Desire. Its impact on the American stage and its cinema, and the consequences of its writing and performance are still with us 67 years after its debut.
Its tumultuous reception, the famous opening-night standing ovation, the huge critical and popular success that followed it, and the 1951 film version, suggest audiences were ready to see real life, its violence, its sexuality and the savagery with which it tears down anachronism, pretention and delusion, played as it is for what it is.
Which all makes Streetcar a tricky conveyance for its director and stars.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Alienation

Perth Theatre Company

Written by Lachlan Philpott

Directed by Melissa Cantwell

Designer Bruce McKiven

Lighting designer Benjamin Cisterne

Sound designer Peter Dawson

Featuring Naomi Hanbury, Luke Hewitt, Natalie Holmwood and Robert Jago

STC Studio until July 13

Natalie Holmwood

More Americans claim to have been abducted by aliens than have been POWs. It’s one of those statistics meant to show what a crazy bunch the Yanks are.

Turn the gag around, though, and it means millions of them believe they have had an alien experience. A surprisingly big number of us do too.

If all this activity is the result of one of the psychological and memory disorders that have been ascribed to it, it’s an interesting phenomenon.

If it isn’t, we have a problem here, Houston.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Red Silk and Luminaire

Red Silk

by Lois Achimovich

Directed by Aarne Neeme

With Roz Hammond, Dan Luxton and Luke Hewitt

Luminaire

Renegade Productions

Writer, director and lighting designer Chris Donnelly

Sound designer Joe Lui

With Alexa Taylor and Jeremy Mitchell

Blue Room Theatre

13 – 31 March 2012

The American poet, Anne Sexton, is little remembered today, but in the 1960s her Pulitzer Prize-winning confessional poetry bridged the gap between her greater friend, and fellow suicide, Sylvia Plath, and the introspective singer songwriters that rose to prominence around the time of her death in 1974. She was a star, and she burned like one.

Red Silk, Lois Achimovich’s play about Sexton, directed by the distinguished Aarne Neeme, does a fine job of historical fiction recounting the poet’s psychological decline in the late ’60s. Roz Hammond plays her large: flirtatious, magnetic and lugubrious. Luke Hewitt and Dan Luxton, as the conflicted psychiatrists who treat and exploit her, give strong supporting performances. Lawrie Cullen-Tait’s economic design, especially her leading lady’s hubba-hubba little grey dress, nails the period nicely (Hammond could walk into series five of Mad Men without batting a socket-lined eyelid).

Theatre: A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare

Black Swan State Theatre Company

Directed by Kate Cherry

Set design by Christina Smith

Costume design by Alicia Clements

Lighting design by Trent Suidgeest

Sound design by Ash Gibson Greig

Featuring James Beck, Elizabeth Blackmore, Benj D’Addario, Adriane Daff, Arielle Gray, Stuart Halusz, Brendan Hanson, Luke Hewitt, Natalie Holmwood, Michael Loney, Sam Longley, Kelton Pell, Myles Pollard, Kenneth Ransom, Scott Sheridan, Alison van Reeken and Shubhadra Young  

Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre

May 11 ­– 22, 2011

There’s no mystery to the enduring popularity of A Midsummer Night’s Dream or its allure for directors and actors. The earliest of Shakespeare’s very greatest plays, its poetry – the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations selects 63 separate passages from it – and sheer sexiness, its bravura set pieces and memorable characters are an irresistible mix.

Alison van Reeken and Luke Hewitt 

Director Kate Cherry wisely lets the text, rather than any real or imagined sub-text, do the talking, and by and large it works for her.

Luke Hewitt’s turn as the immortal Bottom is a great success. Hewitt is a big, funny man, which makes Bottom the figure of fun meat and drink for him, but he’s got the sensitivity to deliver the character’s humanity and essential goodness. We can laugh at Bottom, but we need to respect him as well, and Hewitt makes us do both.

Alison van Reeken’s Titania is armed and dangerous, with weapons both human and supernatural at her disposal, even when lost in love or lust. She’s a knockout.