Daily Review

OzAsia, Adelaide 2019
The Village
by Stan Lai and Wang Wei-Chung
Stan Lai and Performance Workshop
Festival Theatre.
October 25.

The 2019 OzAsia program has been notable for its significant returns. Artistic director Joseph Mitchell has said that while he is very energised by the new artists he has brought in, he is also committed, in his fifth year at the wheel, to bring back artists who have already made their mark with the OzAsia audience.

So we …

Daily Review

Cuckoo
By Jaha Koo
CAMPO
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
October 27.
FIVE stars

Cuckoo is a meditation on South Korean society over the 22 years since the Asian Financial Crisis, told, in part, by three rice cookers. It is hard to imagine a theatre piece narrated by rice cookers. But in sixty well-chosen minutes writer, performer, composer, Jaha Koo raises life issues and explores political and economic questions that are far from light and fluffy.

Named for …

EYES/LIES
Ontroerend Goed
Space Theatre
October 20.

The name of the impressively original Belgian theatre company, Ontroerend Goed, the program notes tell us, roughly translates as “Feel Estate”. This sounds almost as cryptic as the original Belgian but there is no doubt that they provide audiences with unexpected and memorable experiences when they come to their performances.

From their first visit to Australia in 2008 they have offered a unique form of immersive experience. With The Smile Off Your Face…

Daily Review
Murray Bramwell

OzAsia Festival 2019 Program

Artistic Director Joseph Mitchell talks about this year’s OzAsia line-up with Murray Bramwell.

Adelaide’s OzAsia Festival has come a long way since its inception in 2006. Initiated by Adelaide Festival Centre CEO, Douglas Gautier, who brought his extensive list of contacts from the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the program remained in the capable hands of Artistic Director Jacinta Thompson until 2015, when Joseph Mitchell began his stint.

This is now Mitchell’s fifth …

Ulster American
by David Ireland
Traverse Theatre Company
Dunstan Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
March 13. Bookings: adelaidefestival.com
Tickets: $40- $79. Duration: 1 hour 25 mins (no interval)
Until March 17.

Ulster American, a new play by Belfast-born playwright David Ireland, is a raucous, funny, disconcerting satire on the cascading consequences of an ill-considered remark where, through social media, the private can become indelibly public. “I grew up during the Troubles,”writes Ireland,”I’m well aware of the dangers of tribalism and …

Manus
by Leila Hekmatnia, Keivan Sarreshteh
Verbatim Theatre Group
AC Arts Main Theatre
March 7. Duration 75 minutes.

Devised and performed by the Iranian Verbatim Theatre Group from Tehran, Manus tells the stories of eight asylum seekers leaving persecution and personal danger in Iran, and the events leading to indefinite incarceration on Nauru and then, Manus Island in PNG.

Director, researcher and performer, Nazanin Sahamizadeh is the company’s driving force and the text for Manus has been gathered from her …

La Reprise. Histoire(s) du theatre (1)
Conceived and directed by Milo Rau
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
March 4. Bookings: adelaidefestival.com
Tickets: $30- $79. Duration: 90 mins (no interval)
Until March 7.

La Reprise, (The Repetition) a Belgian-German collaboration developed by director, Milo Rau, is an anatomy of a murder. It is also a careful dissection of the business and strategies of theatre. This intriguing essay on human transgression wittily explores its own best ways for making us, not …