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: The Enchanters

By John Aitken

Directed and designed by John Senczuk

Lighting design by Trent Suidgeest

Sound design by James Luscombe

Featuring Richard Mellick, Nick Maclaine, Ethan Tomas, Ian Toyne, David McLeod, Sam Tye, Edgar Metcalfe, Cody Fern, Andrew Hale, John Pratt, Nick Candy and John Aitken.  

Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre

June 1 – 4, 2011

Veteran WA playwright John Aitken has seized the opportunity presented by the opening of the State Theatre Centre to imagine the watershed year of William Shakespeare’s career in The Enchanters, and he and director/designer John Senczuk have fashioned a likeable, albeit patchy, entertainment from it.

It’s a ripping yarn, with cloak-and-daggery at court and lawyers, swords and money in the streets. Aitken has drawn assiduously from his sources, most notably, I suspect, James Shapiro’s terrific 1599, to tell the story of Richard Burbage’s company, the Chamberlain’s Men, and the opening of their new theatre, the Globe.

Aitken can’t resist airing some of the more contentious speculations about Shakespeare, his sexuality and religious and political loyalties among them. Personally, I’m averse to the idea of Shakespeare as a high-class rent boy for the Earl of Southhampton and some of the other detritus of Shakespeariana given credence by the play, but you can be the judge of that.

Link here  to the complete review in The West Australian