The best shows to see on Sydney stages this week

Sydney Theatre Company’s new production of Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles marks the second time this comedic-yet-tense finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama has appeared on the Sydney stage. With a focus on struggle, resilience and change in both the personal and generational senses, the play explores the evolving relationship between 21-year-old Leo (Shiv Palekar, The Tempest) and his 91-year-old grandmother, Vera (Nancye Hayes).  After Leo’s cross-country cycling trip goes terribly wrong, no one is more surprised than Vera when he turns up on the doorstep of her Greenwich Village apartment in the middle of the night. Over the course of this one-act drama, the pair navigates grief, identity, generational differences, and the weight of the past.  Kenneth Moraleda’s direction brings out the play’s delicate balance of humour and emotional depth, ensuring that each moment feels intimate and impactful, and a sense of the love and care between Leo and Vera is quickly established. However, something about this play left this reviewer wanting more. [Nancye] Hayes is a dynamic performer...with fantastic comedic timing Although both Leo and Vera’s motivations remain uncertain, one thing is made clear: both protagonists are staunchly counter-cultural ‘lefties’. But this doesn’t mean they always see eye to eye. Leo is an impassioned young Obama-era ‘woke-ist’ who’s critical of the 'institution' – although his girlfriend Bec (Ariadne Sgouros, Belvoir’s The Curious Incident of the...

Ah, the Titanic. An unsinkable cultural icon, the “Ship of Dreams” has appeared in almost as many movies and stage productions as the songs of Canada’s queen of the power ballad, Céline Dion. It’s even got a two-and-a-half-hour (surprisingly serious) movie musical adaptation based on Maury Yeston’s Titanic: the Musical. Although, none can hold a candle to the cultural impact of James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster – you know, the one with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. So, with nostalgia being such hot property right now, it was only a matter of time before we got the camp-as-hell musical fantasia made-for-and-by-the-gays that is Titanique. Created by Marla Mindelle (who originated the role of Céline Dion – well, as imagined in this show), Constantine Rousouli (who originated the role of Jack) and director Tye Blue (whose countless industry credits include working on the casting team of RuPaul’s Drag Race), Titanique is revisionist history at its best. Loaded with Céline Dion’s greatest bangers, it casts Queen Dion herself (played so wonderfully by cabaret legend Marney McQueen here in Aus) as the narrator of the tragic tale, who continuously places herself at the center of the action – quite literally – much to Jack and Rose’s repeated dismay. It brings the campness of the film to the front, with Stephen Anderson (Mary Poppins) playing Rose’s awful mother Ruth (complete with a bird’s nest headpiece), and Abu Kebe (Choirboy) playing a brilliant, tear-jerking drag parody...

Aria is a tasteful black comedy for Kirribilli’s Ensemble Theatre, doing the job its audience wants it to do – it offers plenty of laughs, a few political jabs here and there, but never pushes the envelope too far, with veteran playwright David Williamson playing it safe in this brand new offering. The play has the airs of Don’s Party for the upper echelons of society, but without the depth of Williamson’s more well-known works. This tale of blind prejudice focuses around the matriarchal Monique (Tracy Mann, Belvoir’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime), whose adult sons are the jewel of her eye as she refuses to let go of the past. A true narcissist to her bones, Monique seemingly gave up her career as an opera singer for love and family, despite her incessant insistence that she could have been the next big thing. The need for perfection now overrules everything in the path of Monique’s lifestyle, with her son’s wives needing to be perfect “acquisitions for the family” rather than loving partners for her boys that can do no wrong. But now, the wives have had enough, and Monique is in for a rude awakening. Tracy Mann is the perfect step-monster-in-law; whose vanity blinds her to the broken shards of a family in front of her Australia’s most prolific playwright, Williamson’s earlier works explored the depths of the working classes’ struggles against the classist turmoil of white Australia. Now, we’re on the other side of the class divide, and while the...

Let’s just start by saying I’m not a D&D player. I’ve played a couple of times with my family, led by my teenage son as Dungeon Master, but that was just to show interest in something he loves. So I do understand the basics – that said, you don’t need any prior knowledge of D&D to get swept up in the magic that is Dungeons and Dragons The Twenty-Sided Tavern. If anything, this show is probably the best way I’ve found so far to get a better grasp on the complex game that is D&D. This is an interactive show that began in New York as an Off-Broadway production – the same director, Michael Fell, also rehearsed with the Australian cast. In what ways is it interactive? The story lies in the audience’s hands, as well as with the roll of the 20-sided dice.  As you enter The Studio at the Sydney Opera House, you pick a coloured sticker from a basket. Depending on what colour you choose, you get aligned with one of the three classes: Warrior, Mage (Wizard) or Assassin/Entertainer. Throughout the show, you make decisions for the character in your assigned class, mostly by choosing options via your mobile phone (after scanning a QR code) – and sometimes just by yelling out. (Top tip:Make sure you turn up with a fully-charged phone.) You answer polls and take part in little games to choose what character the actors play, then make decisions or see the outcomes of characters’ actions. Dice rolls are directed by the Dungeon Master, played by the charismatic Cody Simpson-lookalike William...

When the world lost its mind over Scottish comedian Richard Gadd’s Netflix show Baby Reindeer (a fusion of his solo show of the same name and its equally startling predecessor Monkey See, Monkey Do) for many, the mic drop was twofold. Not only was this an uncomfortably riveting and rarely told story centred on a male survivor of sexual assault and intense stalking, but it’s also mostly true, with only minor tweaks. These twin catastrophes really happened to Gadd, who bears his wounded soul. The opposite’s true of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s similarly ‘confessional’ solo show-turned-TV sensation, Fleabag. While many of her unnamed character’s fears, hopes and failings are drawn from personal experience, Waller-Bridge has spoken about how she now regrets how many folks have mistaken her fictional family’s dysfunction for the real deal.  Hailing from Francesca Moody Productions, the same creative force helping drive both of those runaway success stories, Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen similarly muddies the waters between truth and fiction to backfoot audiences. Landing at the Sydney Opera House's Playhouse Theatre for Sydney Mardi Gras, it looks for all the world like a stand-up comedy show – thanks to its simple stool, coiled long-cord mic and naught much else but an occasionally flashing lighting set-up.  As punchlines go, it’s a doozy, backed up by Samuel Barnett’s fleet-footed and frenetic delivery... The resemblance is so uncanny that when Olivier...

Director Patrick Kennedy (Sophia=(Wisdom) Part 3: The Cliffs) brings his signature surrealist style to this punk retelling of the 1889 Cleveland Street Scandal from British playwright James Fritz at the New Theatre. The play reimagines the scandal – in which a secret gay brothel, frequented by a number of gentlemen and staffed by post boys, was discovered in 19th-century London – as a collage of scenes between aristocrats, arrested post boy Charlie and his mother Emily, and even glimpses into Queen Victoria’s conversations with God.  This production is stuffed with visual delights – a looming, cartoonish figure of Queen Vic keeps a watchful eye over the play’s events as four video screens keep track of place and time, and a warped Union Jack is slung in the back corner of the stage.  The story is fast-paced (for the most part) and engaging, although it can become somewhat repetitive. The combination of such a rich visual language with hefty dialogue is also a lot to take in, with little room for reprieve during the show’s almost three-hour runtime. Still, this is exciting theatremaking for a Sydney stage, and it is well worth a watch, especially for the unfaithful revisionist approach to our gay history. The Flea is a fitting reminder of queer history, and the struggles we still face, as the Sydney Mardi Gras Festival’s series of cultural events starts to rainbow-ify the city. The Flea is playing at New Theatre, Newtown, until March 8. Find tickets & info over here. Stay...