The best shows to see on Sydney stages this week

Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer-winning 1949 play has lost none of its potency in the last 75 years. Indeed, in our current terrible moment of economic anxiety, the heaviest weight on Willy Loman’s back – the need to make his mortgage payments even as he’s rendered obsolete – will be familiar to many audience members, although perhaps one step removed. Director Neil Armfield and resident director Therésa Borg anchor this production in the period of the play’s genesis, but the themes remain timeless – beautifully and excruciatingly so. Anthony LaPaglia is our Willy Loman, making his Sydney stage debut at the Theatre Royal in the role that earned him standing ovations when this production debuted in Melbourne. Weighed down by years, responsibilities, and his own bulk, LaPagia’s Loman prowls the stage muttering, half lost in memories, pinning all his hopes on the illusory successes of his adult sons: wastrel womaniser Happy (Ben O’Toole) and former golden boy Biff (Josh Helman), high school football star turned frustrated drifter. Willy’s wife, the long-suffering Linda (Alison Whyte) dutifully dithers around her husband and boys, until she too fractures under the weight of Willy’s unrealised ambitions.  LaPaglia makes for an incredibly obstinate and frustratingly obtuse Willy, his crippling insecurities masked by a thick armour cast from bluster and bravado. Yes, it’s all about the American Dream and the failures thereof – but it’s worth noting that the American Dream has always been A

This is it, we have found the yassification of Shakespeare. Fuelled by a playlist of certified pop hits, this jukebox romp billed as “the greatest love story ever remixed” poses a simple but provocative question: What if, instead of joining Romeo in eternal slumber, Juliet decided to live? A contagiously joyous musical spectacular, & Juliet has finally landed at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre after being met with critical acclaim on Broadway and the West End, not to mention the rapturously received Australian debut in Melbourne.  Filled with sing-a-long-able chart-topping bangers made famous by the likes of Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry and more from the songbook of Grammy-winning Swedish songwriter/producer Max Martin, the Aussie cast is overflowing with talent in this feel-good, flashy production. & Juliet is Shakespeare remixed for the girls, the gays and the theys... [but does it] really cut it as the feminist reclamation that we are promised? Will you be entertained? Absolutely. Does & Juliet set a new standard for jukebox musicals? Yes. Will you see one of the most diverse and charismatic casts of triple-threats ever assembled on an Australian stage? Heck yeah. Does the story deliver on the feminist retribution we are promised? Not quite. “What if Juliet didn’t kill herself?” Anne Hathaway (played by the enthralling Amy Lehpamer) posits to her husband, William Shakespeare (the ever-charming Rob Mills). “She’s only ever had one boyfriend, and frankly, the endi

When an entire teen choir is suddenly killed in a tragic roller coaster accident, they awaken to find themselves in a strange carnie limbo. Greeted by an ominous robotic fortune teller, these misfits are invited to compete for the chance to return to the land of the living. This is the premise of Ride The Cyclone – the exciting, modern, TikTok-viral Canadian musical that is now playing its Aussie premiere season at Sydney’s intimate Hayes Theatre. Dark yet camp, nihilistic yet strangely life affirming, this show is full of surprises and just as brilliantly bonkers as it sounds.  Corralled and narrated by the legendary Pamela Rabe as the (studio-recorded) voice of The Amazing Karnak, a fresh young cast has been assembled to take on some of the most compelling characters in modern musical theatre, and there’s not a weak link among them (if only the same could be said for the fateful carnival ride on which their characters meet their untimely demise). Melding with the production’s other-worldly audio-visual elements, Rabe’s inimitable voice is the perfect pick for the mysterious fortune-telling automaton, lending a certain gravitas with a vaguely threatening, strangely alluring mythical quality – like a Matrix villain procreated with a wise wizard matriarch.  In Ride The Cyclone, modern, relevant and youthful references fit comfortably and casually within the musical theatre form, and this accomplishment is certainly key to the show’s popularity with Gen Z. The characters dreamt

I first saw playwright Grace Chapple’s Never Closer in 2022, as part of the indie program in Belvoir St Theatre's’s tiny 80-seat Downstairs Theatre. That production made a huge impression on me – filled with heavy silence, ragged sobs, soaring laughter, dancing, drinking, and all the wonderful and terrible things that come with knowing and loving a group of friends for most of your life. All of this “acutely emotive” drama is made more profound by the play’s setting, with the violence and political turmoil of Northern Ireland between 1977 and 1987 unfolding in the background. The same ensemble of actors from 2022, directed by Hannah Goodwin, have graduated to the mainstage this year, making their debut in Belvoir’s 372-seat Upstairs Theatre. The result is somewhat less intense than the original production, but it is still a well-written portrait of the importance of connection and care in the face of terror. Chapple writes about a group of friends who’ve grown up together in a tiny town. Deirdre (Emma Diaz) is stubbornly rooted there, and her friends Jimmy (Raj Labade), Niamh (Mabel Li), Mary (Ariadne Sgouros) and Conor (Adam Sollis) are all struggling with living in a place filled with bombings, death and turmoil. We begin at Christmas, 1977, and Niamh is leaving for London. The opening scenes are slightly shorter than the first iteration, but they still do the important work of setting up the sometimes difficult closeness between all of the characters. Then we jump forward

Every year, you can count on Bell Shakespeare to bring the Bard’s best megalomaniacal leaders and tragic figures to life for a blockbuster season. This winter, for the first time in over a decade, the prestigious company is revisiting one of his most captivating despots: King Lear.  Starring veteran actor of stage and screen Robert Menzies in the titular role and led by artistic director Peter Evans, this haunting classic will be performed in the round, in the intimate setting of The Neilson Nutshell at Bell Shakespeare’s home in the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct. Evans and designer Anna Tregloan have drawn from the play’s pagan setting, with the action unfolding beneath a sculptural model of the solar system which extends out over the audience. In this evocative space, the ensemble cast explores central themes of truth, politics, family, succession, authority and religion. Written during Shakespeare’s later years of life, King Lear tells the bleak tale of a tyrant king whose plan for succession slowly leads to a tragic end. In exchange for a share of his kingdom, he demands declarations of love from his three daughters, who must prove their unquestioning obedience (a premise that will no doubt sound familiar to Succession fans).  When the praise from his youngest and best-loved daughter Cordelia falls short, Lear exiles her, and divides everything between the remaining two. With his title officially abdicated, he’s quickly turned out by his deceptive daughters who he thought would

More than ten years since its premiere, this spectacularly saucy cabaret show – from the talented people who brought us the brilliantly outrageous Blanc de Blanc – is back on the Sydney stage. Popping up at The Grand Electric, Limbo The Return will feature a seductive mix of cabaret, circus and acrobatics, performed with a heart-pounding soundtrack and reality-altering lighting. The international cast features Bulgarian aerialist Maria Moncheva (Harry Potter – Germany), slack rope daredevil David Marco and fire-eating singer Clara Fable.The creators of the show originally put together an internationally renowned show Strut & Fret, which gained fans across the world (including Madonna, who went to see it twice during its London season). The follow up show – Limbo Unhinged – played at the Sydney Opera House back in 2018, and Sydney-based fans will finally be able to reconnect with the spellbinding cabaret-style performance. With the same creative team at the helm, audiences can expect a similar calibre at Limbo The Return: with wildly-impressive acrobatics, titillating circus performances and an ecstatic soundtrack. Composed by New York’s Jank maestro Sxip Shirey, the live music – described by Creative Director Scott Maidment as “a New Orleans brass bands meets the Beastie Boys on the way through Berlin, looking for a house party,” – is one of the main drawcards of this year’s show.  Set in an imaginary space between heaven and hell (hence the name), Limbo The Return has been e

Not to be rude, but do you realise that it’s been a little over two decades since the early 2000s – when we all had Spice Girls posters tacked to our walls, fresh Harry Potter books on our shelves, and everyone was wearing trucker hats? While some trends come around again (and thankfully, others don’t) this intimate new musical comedy wants to remind you of all of them on a cringe-filled trip down memory lane. Strap in ’90s babies, this one’s for you.  Landing at Bondi Pavilion for two shows only on June 14 and 15 as part of the iconic site's arts program, Dear Diary is a confessional one-woman show created and performed by up-and-coming storyteller Kay Proudlove, who turned to her teenage diary entries for inspiration and ended up turning them into an 85-minute comedic musical.  From juicy topics including celebrity crushes and bad first kisses, to the serious stuff of body image and the binge-drinking culture that teenagers often come up against, this witty tale is a musical journey into the world of growing up.  Developed in Wollongong through Merrigong Theatre’s Merrigong X program, Dear Diary debuted at Perth Fringe (where it received 4.5 stars), and is now kicking off its national tour in May with dates across New South Wales in Bondi and Penrith, Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland. Tickets are $20-$45 and you can get yours here.

Experimental in form, intimate in emotion, and often oblique, re:group performance collective’s theatre productions stretch the possibilities of the artform to strange new places while telling small, personal stories. This is the fifth production from the collective to “mash theatre and moving-making together” and it’s the third that I’ve reviewed – and, as long as they keep doing what they’re doing, it won’t be the last. You couldn’t keep me away. Coil was a kind of riff on what Sydney Theatre Company’s departing Artistic Director Kip Williams calls “cine-theatre”, utilising a combination of video and live performance to tell the tale of a dying video store. A live film element was also deployed in UFO, which utilised a set comprised of detailed miniatures to explore the gig economy during an alien first contact scenario. Now, there’s POV, which has taken over Belvoir’s Downstairs Theatre. A three-hander with a cast of 36 unrehearsed actors (keep reading, it will make sense) this new show again utilises video, this time to look at the impact of mental illness on a modern family. But there’s an added twist – one that means the performance reviewed here is not the performance audiences will see on any other night, and not just in the regular live theatre sense. Two thirds of POV’s cast are fresh and unrehearsed for every performance – going in only lightly prepared and guided through the story, much as the audience is, by our, uh, point of view character, Bub. Bub, played by M