Circus: Absinthe (★★★★)

Ukrainian furniture removalists were never like this

The Empire Spiegeltent
Perth Arena Forecourt
Until August 29

Those wonderful folks who gave you Empire a couple of years ago are back, with Absinthe, and it’s a doozy.
Since it premiered in 2006, the show, mounted by the Australians Wayne Harrison and Ross Mollison, has taken Manhattan, and then Vegas – where it is approaching its 2000th performance at Caesar’s Palace – by storm.
What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas, though; this touring production has the same structure as its stay-at-home sibling, with its MCs, The Gazillionaire and his ditsy side-kick Abby Bobbins, dispensing gobsmacking crudities and introducing a dazzling line-up of twirlers, balancers and fliers.
Cabaret circus is the 21st Century’s vaudeville, and it’s no wonder that the public flocks to it. If you liked the Perth Fringe smash La Soiree, you’ll LOVE Absinthe. And if Cirque du Soleil’s philosophical meanderings leave you a little underwhelmed these days (I plead guilty), Absinthe will quickly cure what ails you. Yowzah!

Read the complete review in The West Australian

Music: Jesus Christ Superstar

by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber

Directed by Laurence Connor

With Ben Forster, Tim Minchin, Melanie C, Andrew O’Keefe, Jon Stevens

Perth Arena

May 31 – June 2

Ben Forster and Tim Minchin

While Jesus Christ Superstar boasts the most coherent narrative of the rock operas, and comes with an ambitious political and religious insight that would have put a bonfire under Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber for most of the last two thousand years, it’s a bit of a jumble at times. It’s also often very heavy (as in metal), not the easiest musical style to bring to the stage.

That’s why, and despite the mixed reception this production has had in the UK, I think an arena staging is a perfectly appropriate way to present what is essentially a piece of music rather than the score of a theatre piece. And, on those terms, this Superstar does what it sets out to do very well.

It’s an absolutely wonderful coincidence that, forty-one years after Andrew Lloyd Webber won a Tony for Jesus Christ Superstar, Tim Minchin, the Perth kid who dreamed of being in it is, almost certainly, going to get one of his own. And much more besides.

Link here for the complete review in The West Australian.