Herald Theatre
Aug 21-Sept 16 | Reviewed by Imogen Neale

It is daunting to know that you don’t know very much about someone who is considered to be a national icon. Especially when that person is charged with being one of the foremost architects of a style and ethos that you try as you might to live and write in the image of. For some people it’s an artist, for others it is a scientist, for me it is Katherine Mansfield.

Downstage
Aug 12-Sept 9 | Reviewed by Melody Nixon

“It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeback, slow, black, crowblack fishing-boat bobbing sea”

This most famous and memorable passage opens Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood, bringing with it the promise of dense, searchingly lyrical language, strong imagery and multi-dimensional characters. In Rachel More’s production this promise is fulfilled. Thomas’ ‘magnum opus’ is brought clearly and imaginatively to stage; his characters have candour, his words are celebrated and his images swell full in the eyes of viewers.

Circa Theatre
Aug 5-Sept 9 | Reviewed by Megan Fleming

PICTURE a typical corporate meeting room: monotone artworks, glass-topped table, and coffee cups. The peep-hole window in the set’s only door hints that the action might be better suited to an asylum. Meet Dr Pitt and Dr Gray, two formidable businesswomen who hate each other – or love each other – or both. Meet Frank, their strange and scruffy interviewee. So begins the real-time action of playwright April De Angelis’ Wild East.

Circa Theatre
July 29-Sept 5 | Reviewed by Nick Henry

“CAN A MAN commit a more heinous offence against another than to fall in love with the same woman?”, asks The Rivals. Indeed. Especially, when the man in question is 'as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.'

This is the play that gave the world Mrs Malaprop, whose confused use of the English language coined the term malapropism, recently popularised in the unintentionally hilarious sayings of George W Bush. Written and set in eighteenth century Bath, England, this is a light and farcical period comedy.