2026: Oedipus the King - Greek Theatre Now

 

 

Oedipus the King by Sophocles.  Greek Theatre Now at Burbidge Amphitheatre, Australian National Botanic Gardens, April 2-6 2026.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 4

Cast & Creatives
Director/Producer: Michael J. Smith

Oedipus: Andrew Mackenzie; Jocasta: Kate Blackhurst
Creon: Owen Maycock
Ensemble/Other Roles: George Belibassakis, Roslyn Hull, Liam O’Connor, Louisa O’Brien, Jade Boyle, and Marcus Mele

Masks/Props: Ben Smith Whatley; Costumes: Priya Pandya
Classics Adviser: Elizabeth Minchin; Graphics: Emilio Park
Photography: Fuyao Liu

Since the Company is called Greek Theatre Now, I must answer the question: What makes this production as relevant today as when Sophocles presented it to the people of Athens as the tragedy Oedipus the King (original Greek title Οιδίπους τύραννος, most commonly known as Oedipus Rex) probably “in the first half of the decade 430–420 BCE”.

That’s 430 + 2000 + 26 = 2456 years ago.

The plague, in Thebes in the play, described in Oedipus Rex “could reflect an actual historical event, [comparing] it with the plague of Athens, which was described by the historian Thucydides as occurring not long before the time that Sophocles’ work appeared”.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3310127 
(US National Library of Medicine National Center Biotechnology Information / PubMed Central)

Bust of Sophocles in the Colonnade of the Muses in the Achilleion, Corfu, Greece, July 2011. Photo courtesy Antonis A. Kousoulis.

Today’s population of the Australian Capital Territory is listed as 486,231 as of September 2025; Attica’s population, according to Ben Akrigg, (Population and economy in classical Athens. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019) may have been 400.000 
[ https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2020/2020.10.40 ]

So I imagine Sophocles writing Oedipus the King for his Attica city-state community, winning second prize at the Athenian dramatic festival of the Great Dionysia, just as our ACT city-state playwright Dylan Van Den Berg recently wrote Milk, about a young Palawa man and his connection to Country, which won the NSW Premiers Award and Canberra Critics’ Circle Award.  (Currency Press, 2023)

Just as Dylan shows us the emotional effects and truths about our failure to deal with the situation of Indigenous people, for whom we, as descendants of the 18th Century invaders, are a plague; Sophocles shows his community the truth about their belief in mythical prophecies, not just  about an actual plague (which today we would not expect them to know how to treat – a bit like Covid in 2020), but more about the nature of political power and ironic comeback when trying to predict the future, which I think we have seen in Prime Minister Albanese’s over-enthusiasm – though for the right reasons – for the failed referendum to give First Nations a voice in the Constitution.

In Sophocles’ play, when Oedipus’ actual parents, Thebes’ King Laius and Queen Jocasta, have him as a baby taken into the mountains to die, their employee gives him to a shepherd who takes pity on the baby, removes the ties holding his ankles together – which causes the swelling in the name “Swollen Feet” i.e. “Oedipus”, and passes him – for the right reasons – to be taken to another city-state, Corinth, where he is adopted by King Polybus and Queen Merope, and grows up believing them – wrongly – to be his parents.

The ironic point of the play is that the mythical prophecy, despite doubts about the gods and oracles’ pronouncements, turns out to be what happens.  Even more ironic is that Oedipus forthrightly – and correctly – insists on discovering all the actual facts, and in doing so causes his own downfall.

Whether Albanese faces his own downfall, we won’t know until the next federal election.  But Sophocles says, take care to stick to the truth, but even then you can never be sure what will happen.  Maybe there is something called Fate, unknowable like the gods of old.

So, to answer my question, this production is a prime example of excellent theatre, very successfully performed in a modern manner, in our own outdoor amphitheatre, which recreates the essential style – sometimes called “Presentational” – which makes it clear to us that we are watching an acted-out drama, rather than an ordinary slice of life, with an intention to raise crucial issues in our lives – like what does it mean to say this is true, or an innocent misunderstanding, or fake news (deliberately so or not).

If this isn’t relevant to our modern technological life, I don’t know what is!

This was achieved by all the actors in their movement, voice (spoken and sung) and costumes that represented the ancient Greek, all choreographed to use the amphitheatre space simply and effectively.

It took only a little while, as one got used to the styling, to find oneself shifting out of being in Canberra to appreciating how the Athenians so long ago would have been watching, listening carefully, reacting to the evolving tragic life of Oedipus and especially of his real mother, Jocasta, and left to wonder what our own fates might be.

The directing and performing really feels like an intelligent community theatre group working for our community.  Very highly recommended.  

On a lighter side, I was amused, and wondered how their prayers were answered, as on a day that had been cloud-covered since dawn, as the Chorus prayed for help from the Gods at the end of the play at 4pm, the clouds cleared and the afternoon sun shone through.

Photos: Peter Hislop

Andrew Mackenzie as Oedipus, Owen Maycock as Creon

Kate Blackhurst as Jocasta - mother and wife to Oedipus

The Chorus praying for help (just as the sun came out)

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026: Bette and Joan by Anton Burge

 

 

 Bette and Joan by Anton Burge.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney  March 20 – April 25  2026

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 27

Cast
Jeanette Cronin as Bette Davis
Lucia Mastrantone as Joan Crawford

Creatives
Director: Liesel Badorrek; Assistant Director: Jessica Fallico
Set & Costume Designer: Grace Deacon
Lighting Designer: Kelsey Lee
Composer & Sound Designer: Ross Johnston
Video Designer: Cameron Smith
Stage Manager: Krystelle Quartermain
Assistant Stage Manager: Lara Kyriazis



It’s my habit, as a reviewer, when seeing a play new to me, to not read too much about the play, and especially not to read reviews, even of previous productions, so that I can respond on the night with the immediate feelings and thoughts that arise without being influenced beforehand.

In the case of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, whose lifetimes closely matched my parents’ who were not often film-goers, I think I never saw any of the Hollywood movies which made Bette and Joan famous, though I certainly recall their names from my younger days.  But I was never aware of the feud between them.

As I expected at Ensemble Theatre, I appreciated very much the acting skills of both Jeanette and Lucia, clearly directed precisely in creating every detail of facial expression, voice and physical action that the playscript required; and the original use of video brought to mind visually the questions the characters talk of – about acting and knowing the difference between reality and fiction.

Yet I felt there was something missing.  I got the picture, so to speak, but I found myself at Intermission hoping for something in the second half which would reveal what the playwright’s purpose would be beyond showing us these two women battling away at each other.

There were a few hints in second half when they were older, in 1962, looking back on their film-making experiences in the 1930s, 40s and 50s but nothing definite enough to make me like either of them, or to feel more empathetic towards them as personalities, apart from sympathy for the social issue of the treatment of women compared to men.

So, after the show, I wondered if I should find out whether other reviewers had doubts like mine.

Lyn Gardner in The Guardian in 2011 made this comment about the original West End production that year: But this kitsch play is not trying to be more than it is, and [Greta] Scacchi and [Anita] Dobson carry it with an alluringly wicked twinkle in their eyes...and  it is only a pity there is not more excavation of the emotional pain felt by these two icons, whose public success was matched by private disasters.
[ https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/may/12/bette-and-joan-review ]

Anton Burge wrote the script which is littered with references to Bette and Joan’s shows. I would have liked to see more of a resolution at the end was a comment in a review of the Brighton Little Theatre production in 2024. 
[ https://rozscott.com/bette-and-joan-by-anton-burge ] 

So, though Jeanette Cronin as Bette Davis and Lucia Mastrantone as Joan Crawford surely gave as good as those acting in the play’s first presentation, and despite Anton Burge’s claim (in the Ensemble’s program notes) that it was never my intention to create merely a catalogue of anecdotes, I find I’m not the only one to want a bit more of a resolution and excavation of the emotional pain.

Maybe, if it’s not there word for word in Burge’s script, then, as director, Liesel Badorrek could indulge in a bit of poetic licence to make it happen.

But don’t let my quibbles stop you from seeing Bette and Joan, because Jeanette and Lucia give stunning performances.


©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026: Irony Done Here - Shortis and Simpson

 

 

Irony Done Here, by Shortis and Simpson, at Smith’s Alternative, Canberra Sat/Sun March 21/22, 2026

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 22 3pm

John Shortis and Moya Simpson have been creating a range of shows for the past 30 years.  Irony Done Here, the title derived with their nice sense of humour from a Bungendore neighbour’s “Ironing Done Here” is just typical.

Amusing word play is central to their satire, to which they add what I call song play.  Moya can turn our expectations on our heads.  I won’t forget her American Country and Western songs about the nature of love.

Despite this seeming to be their swansong, John is unable to put the keys away, and promises he is already writing a new show – an epilogue, say?

I began my review of their first show together as follows:

Shortis & Curlies John Shortis, Moya Simpson, Andrew Bissett at The School of Arts Cafe, 108 Monaro Street, Queanbeyan.  Season: Thursdays to Saturdays till June 29, 1996.  Bookings: Phone 297 6857.  Professional.

If you are a Liberal politician confident that cutting government spending is the only way to go; or a Labour politician feeling sorry for yourself after 100 days of the new [John Howard] regime; or a veterinary surgeon operating out of Woden Valley; or someone who thinks that a national gun register is not a good idea; or Princess Diana; or Jeff Kennett; or even a frozen embryo who hopes to inherit your dead father's estate: then you shouldn't see this show because you probably won't laugh.

Their, possibly, last show is a selected history of 30 years in 90 minutes, including, to use their term, ‘human’ songs as well as their iconic political satires, showing their always engaging range of lyric writing, music composing, and song making in action, which is not always about subtle ironies in our lives.  Empathetic celebration has its place on the right occasion.

They managed this even for our first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton, whose pay was so low, he had to live cheaply, more or less in his office.

But I think the best bit of irony done here is that, among the prime ministers with the least sense of humour and appreciation of satire, Tony Abbott provided the best title for one of Shortis & Simpson’s previous shows and which I now designate as the title revealing the guts of Irony Done Here – A Suppository of Wisdom.

The show is wise because it reveals the truth through incisive humour.  It is a measure of both John’s and Moya’s art and intelligence – for which the audience at the conclusion of the 3pm show on Sunday spontaneously thanked them personally.

At https://shortisandsimpson.com/about-us/ they have provided brief notes about their histories, and quotes from many reviews.  I was pleased  to see one of my own, on a projection of a past advertising poster, for The Three Scrooges - Comedy Christmas Cabaret, at The Street Theatre in 2005:

 “,,,this is a terrible show.  It’s funny, for a start.  Even worse, it’s satirical.” 

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026: The Dear Departed - Live Radio Play. Mill Theatre

 

 

The Dear Departed: Live Radio Play originally by Stanley Houghton, adapted for radio by Bart Meehan,  Mill Theatre, Dairy Road, Canberra March 20-28 2026.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 20

Cast
Andrea Close: Amelia Slater; Sarah Hartley: Victoria Slater (20-21 March)
Aleksis Andreitchenko: Victoria Slater (27-28 March)
Richard Manning: Henry Slater  
Helen McFarlane: Elizabeth Jordan; Timmy Sekuless: Ben Jordan 
Graeme Rhodes: Host and Abel Merryweather 

Production Team
Playwright: Stanley Houghton
Adapted by Bart Meehan and Lexi Sekuless
Director: Lexi Sekuless
Stage Manager: Ciara Ford

Mill Theatre shows itself in a new light – light entertainment in a Live Radio Play, saying This production revives the tradition from the 1930s to the 1950s, inviting you to watch the mechanics of storytelling in real time: actors at microphones, sound effects created live, music underscoring the action — and a brand-new recording captured every night. It’s theatre, radio, and time travel all at once.

But I have some doubts, not about the performances but about the purpose of choosing this playscript and what might have been done to make this clear to the audience.

William Stanley Houghton (1881–1913) was an English playwright who wrote the original play for the stage in 1908.  The Dear Departed was amusing in its day, and remained popular, being adapted to fit within the history of BBC Radio Theatre's exploration of social issues and comedy, and broadcast on a number of occasions, in different adaptations, through the 1970s.

But in this local Canberra adaptation by ANU’s Bart Meehan and Lexi Sekuless, playing the Slater and Jordan families as old-fashioned English toffs, for we colonials to denigrate, actually loses part of the point of the play that Houghton wrote.

He was writing in parallel to the more famous (and much more substantial playwright) George Bernard Shaw who had recently written How He Lied to Her Husband and Major Barbara in 1905.  Houghton, like Shaw, was keen on presenting ordinary – i.e. working class – people while raising difficult issues, like family inheritance, in The Dear Departed.

The UK Wimbourne Drama Club, for their recent stage production, have pointed out that Houghton was a leading figure of the Manchester School of dramatists, but have published an un-named reviewer saying “Apparently rewritten to make it adaptable to any locale, Stanley Houghton’s well-known comedy, ‘The Dear Departed’, retained all the humorous situations but the dialogue – from the North Country idiom, and dialect – lost much of its impact.”
https://wimbornedramaproductions.com/productions/past/the-dear-departed/

Though I could easily laugh along last night, making fun of the English upper class made for too easily predictable jokes – including how obvious it was that Grandpa would rise from the ‘dead’ – while I can imagine doing it in Beatles’ accents (although they were from Liverpool, not Manchester), and emphasising the awfulness of the daughters’ attitudes towards their struggling working class drunkard father.  Then the laughter has a black edge which applies to us all.

I rather like to think that Shaw saw The Dear Departed, and then wrote Pygmalion (1913)  - which, of course, then was made lighter (but still funny) as a musical in My Fair Lady.

So Mill Theatre has done the good thing by going a bit off the beaten track, but I think the entertainment might have been a bit less light.

As I said, though, the performances were excellent, with changing voice modes and noises off all cleverly done.  I once saw a video of The Goon Show being live broadcast, with Peter Sellers making it even funnier for his acting colleagues in the studio,  as well as for the listeners.

The Dear Departed – Live Radio Play works very well, and you should focus especially on the Radio Presenter Graeme Rhodes, and his amazing transition into Abel Merryweather.

Highly recommended. 

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026: Almost, Maine by John Cariani

 

 

Almost, Maine by John Cariani.  Mockingbird Theatre Company at Belconnen Arts Centre March 18 – 28, 2026.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 19

Cast
The production features a four-person ensemble cast portraying multiple roles: 
Alexander Wilson - Pete / Steve / Lendall / Chad / Man
Wendy Wakwella – Ginette / Sandrine / Gayle / Deena / Suzette / Rhonda
Jayde Dowhy – Glory / Waitress / Marvalyn / Shelly / Marci / Hope 
Alastair McKenzie – East / Jimmy / Randy / Phil / Dave
    
Creatives
Director: Zac Bridgman; Assistant Director: Anna Hemming
Artistic Director/Producer: Chris Baldock 
Set Design: Chris Baldock
Lighting and Sound Design: Rhiley Winnett and Zac Bridgman
Costumes and Props: Cast and Crew
Sound and Lighting Operator and Stage Manager: Rhiley Winnett
Projections: Chris Baldock
Intimacy Coordinator: Steph Evans


Good plays – and that means good performances of well-written scripts – are the hardest to write about, because what is most praiseworthy is how they directly create your emotional responses as you are watching.  It’s like listening to good music.  You don’t need to explain how you feel.

Achieving this depends on originality of design and human understanding in directing, so that actors can find fine detail in their characters and in their reactions to each other in role.

This witty American script consisting of nine unrelated short stories could easily become just enjoyably funny skits about falling in or out of love, set for no apparent reason in a small country town in Maine, north-east USA.

This presentation is so well designed, directed and acted that though the scenes are humorous, they work to create a multi-faceted image of Love, as if it were a large diamond which sparkles in different colours in different lights from different angles.  A very satisfying experience for any viewer, especially when the Prologue scene, which seemed somehow unfinished at the time, is referenced – a bit mysteriously – as an Interlogue at interval; and neatly – I could say nicely – resolved in the Epilogue at the end.

Almost, Maine is very much an American play, and it was a sensible decision to train the actors to be able to speak not only in the correct accents but in a somewhat exaggerated style which is a true feature of that culture.  All the way up to the one-time reality television host who is now President.

When John Cariani wrote Almost, Maine in 2002 he may not have thought a quarter of a century later an Australian like me would see some aspects of the play as satire about American love for their president.  Perhaps I’m going too far – but see this excellent Mockingbird Production and see what you think.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026 My Brilliant Career - Melbourne Theatre Company

 

 

 My Brilliant Career, adapted as a musical from the novel by Miles Franklin.  Melbourne Theatre Company at Canberra Theatre Centre, 7 – 15 March, 2026

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Opening Night March 8

CREATIVES
Director Anne-Louise Sarks
Musical Director / Additional Music Arrangements Victoria Falconer
Choreographer Amy Campbell
Set & Costume Designer Marg Horwell
Lighting Designer Matt Scott
Orchestrator / Vocal Arranger James Simpson
Sound Designer Joy Weng
Associate Director Miranda Middleton
Associate Set & Costume Designer Savanna Wegman
Assistant Musical Director Drew Livingston

CAST (alphabetical order – Collective Ensemble)
Cameron Bajraktarevic-Hayward; Melanie Bird; Lincoln Elliott
Victoria Falconer; Kala Gare; Jack Green; Raj Labade; Drew Livingston
Meg McKibbin; Ana Mitsikas; Christina O’Neill; Jarrad Payne

Key acting roles:
Kala Gare as the protagonist Sybylla Melvyn. The ensemble includes Raj Labade (Harry/Peter), Drew Livingston (Father/Uncle Jay-Jay/M’Swat), Ana Mitsikas (Grannie/Rose Jane), and Christina O'Neill (Mother/Aunt Helen/Mrs M'Swat)


The very best theatre happens when the source material is emotionally honest and the writers, directors, designers, choreographers, musicians and actors create an original way to present on stage a work both thoroughly entertaining and true to its source.

This adaptation of Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career as music theatre by Melbourne Theatre Company is a wonderful example.  It takes Franklin’s understanding of herself as a woman growing up in 1899, making it available for our young generation in the 21st Century through music, song and dance as the story which Sybylla Melvyn tells us is “about – me!”

In this way, Sybylla – in effect the young Miles Franklin – takes us into her confidence.  As her mother shows her, to see herself in a mirror is to see her external attributes; but it does not reveal her real self.  

Entirely appropriately for our modern concerns about, for example, the destructive effects – especially in girls and young women – of the misuse of imagery on internet social platforms, Sybylla’s search for how to find and, for herself, how to become “someone like me” – very often generating shout out loud comedy – creates for us empathetic depth.  We feel for Sybylla, for Miles, for ourselves as we react to and reflect on their experiences, and so by a kind of osmosis understanding grows.

While writing the original My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin was what we know nowadays as a young adult, just turning 21 as her first novel was published.  Opening night at the musical was full of cheers and whistles, and sighs – not only from the young, though I admit as an octogenarian I only clapped in admiration – standing with everyone for the final ovation.  

To achieve such great theatre, all the performers work as an extraordinary ensemble company, playing out all the characters over time as musicians, dancers, singers, mimes and actors with such precision, in itself a powerful reason to not miss My Brilliant Career – the Musical.

Though, as Sybylla insists, her story will not be a romance, and has no plot, I think it is fair to say that the performances by Kala Gare and Raj Labade as Sybylla and Harry are especially memorable.

It’s exciting to watch; ironic humour abounds; thoughtful on social issues; and emotionally honest.

A brilliant career for Melbourne Theatre Company; a brilliant theatre experience here in Canberra.

Kala Gare as Sybylla 
My Brilliant Career - Melbourne Theatre Company 2026

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026: The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare

 

 

 The Taming of the Shrew adapted from William Shakespeare’s play.  Lakespeare, Canberra, February 17 to March 1, 2026. Locations: Various parks and venues across the Canberra region, including Belconnen Arts Centre, Verity Lane, Pialligo Estate, Tuggeranong Town Park, Patrick White Lawns, Glebe Park, and Haig Park.
Saturday 28 February, FREE, Haig Park
Sunday 1 March, Pialligo Estate (two shows - lunch and dinner)

Reviewed by Frank McKone
February 27 at Belconnen Arts Centre

Cast
Petruchia: Ylaria Rogers        Christopher (Kit): Michael Cooper
Lucentia: Shontae Wright    Bianco: Alastair James McKenzie
Trania: Anneka van der Velde    Grumia: Yanina Clifton
Gremia: Alice Ferguson        Baptista:Giuliana Baggoley
Biondello: Blue Hyslop        Hortensia: Claire Noack
Vincentia: Jill Young

Creatives
Director: Karen Vickery
Voice and Performance Coach: Sarah Chalmers
Costumes: Helen Wojtas        Milliner: Rachael Henson
Sound design/composer: Paris Scharkie
Jig choreography: Ylaria Rogers
Stage Manager: Disa Swifte




Lakespeare’s reinterpretation of The Taming of the Shrew turns Shakespeare on his head.  I’ve not laughed so much in many years.

I have long had doubts about The Taming of the Shrew.  In a time – in 1590 – when women were not allowed to perform in plays and women characters were played by dressed-up men, what was Will Shakespeare’s intention?  Who laughed as Petruchio starved his wife into submission?

And who got the joke as the man playing Katharina, the shrew, told women “Fie, fie! Unknit that threatening unkind brow, and dart not scornful glances from those eyes, to wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor!”

I imagine, in Shakespeare’s audience, the men laughing along with their friend acting the role, but I wonder what women – including Queen Elizabeth herself – really thought.  Could Katharina seriously be in love with Petruchio, a kind of male shrew, so they make a match?  Should I, in modern times, laugh along to the very end, or see Kate’s final speech as a serious invocation of women’s liberation – which I support? 

By turning the boys’ parts into girls – Petruchio to Petruchia – played by powerful women, and the girls’ parts into boys – Katharina (Kate) to Christopher (Kit) – played by weak men, and acting as much towards us, as in stand-up comedy, as to each other in competition for sexual prowess, the play becomes a thoroughly enjoyable laugh-out-loud highly confusing farce.

Just as it was probably meant to be in 1590, or more likely at its first recorded showing in 1594: "begininge at newing ton my Lord Admeralle men & my Lorde chamberlen men as ffolowethe [...] 11 of June 1594 Rd at the tamynge of A Shrowe."  I asked AI “What reaction did the first performance of The Taming of the Shrew in Shakespear's time have?”, and there’s plenty of history to follow up about changing approaches to this play over the centuries.  How Christopher got into the story is fascinating in itself.

In other words, when you see Lakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew you’re seeing much more than an enjoyable romp with terrific acting, physical choreography, and wonderfully detailed emotional interactions between characters, but an interpretation which places the status of women equally – or even more than equally – up against the historical status of men.

Very highly recommended.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026: Shakespeare in Love - Mockingbird Theatrics

 

 

 Shakespeare in Love, adapted by Lee Hall from the Oscar-winning screenplay by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman. 
Mockingbird Theatrics at Belconnen Arts Centre, Canberra, February 11-28, 2026.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Feb 17

I had an argument the other day with a Richard III fanatic who blamed William Shakespeare for getting his history wrong.  But, I said, who is the more important to us today?  

Here’s the play that proves what Shakespeare can do for all of us – it shows how important theatre is in a play that can make us believe in love.  And don’t we need it in today’s fractious world?

But, you might say, Tom Stoppard was an absurdist – remember Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead?  How can we take him seriously?  Mockingbird is the obviously rightly named company to do the trick.

And they absurdly succeed in their riotous Shakespeare in Love, acted out in a small-scale living theatre with the immediacy actually more like backstage on the spot with Will in writing and rehearsing the Romeo and Juliet story than when watching the justifiably famous 1998 movie.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes are one thing on film.  Asha Forno and Tom Cullen are up to their mark on stage.  The movie is described as a “romantic period comedy-drama”, by the Shakespeare Network on Youtube, but I think Mockingbird’s irreverent farce is more true, not only to Stoppard but to us, sitting in amongst the action, laughing at the absurdity, while dealing with the issues of women’s rights (to perform as themselves equal to men), the nature of government (Liz St Clair Long’s Queen Elizabeth matches Judi Dench), sexist behaviour and funding for the arts.

I’m (privately) told director Chris Baldock, like several characters, may wave his arms saying “It’s a mystery” and “It’ll be alright in the end”.

And it is.  Highly recommended.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026: The Social Ladder by David Williamson

 

 

The Social Ladder by David Williamson.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, 23 January – 14 March 2026

Reviewed by Frank McKone
February 7

Playwright: David Williamson
Director: Janine Watson; Assistant Director: Jules Billington
Set & Costume Designer: Veronique Benett 
Costume Supervisor: Lily Mateljan; Choreographer: Sanjana Dhanakoti
Lighting Designer: Matt Cox
Composer & Sound Designer: Clare Hennessy
Stage Manager: Lauren Tulloh; Asst Stage Manager: Bella Wellstead




I thank Michael Bailey, appropriately writing in the Financial Review, considering the importance of monetary wealth to the characters in this play – and perhaps I may say to the Sydney North Shore audience at The Ensemble – for reminding me that

David Williamson once almost had a play cancelled because the government subsidising it didn’t like its content, and the renowned dramatist says the implosion of Adelaide Festival’s board is a reminder for arts directors to stand firm against attempted censorship.

Despite the crises engulfing boards from Creative Australia to Melbourne Symphony Orchestra since 2023, as their programming or performers were seen to take a side in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, an arts directorship is still the ultimate signifier of status for the characters in Williamson’s new play, The Social Ladder.

https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/david-williamson-reveals-his-writers-week-moment-20260122-p5nwbo

Accumulating money is the only purpose in life for Australian Charles Mallory, with no concern even for the subleties of his English wife’s delicacy about her upper middle-class origin.  Of course she married him and migrated to the one-time Workers’ Paradise, but she does wish he would behave better.

It had surprised me when David Williamson left Sydney for Noosa, I suppose now where society is less crass.  He certainly has it in for all classes struggling up the Sydney rungs like Katie Norrie, financial advisor, from Engadine to, I guess, St Ives; and for the ad-film-maker and medical researcher men to make their creativity financially viable.

The worry, I wonder, is should we laugh?  In fact, towards the end of the first act, though I had laughed with everyone else, the situation seemed to be a bit indefinite.  The issues were made apparent – but what on earth would be done about it?

Well!  The shorter second half is an absolute blast!!

Ordinariness is farcically blown up in our faces.  We can’t help but laugh and laugh the more farcical it gets, as Andrew McFarlane exposes the truth in the drunken Charles Mallory.  

David Williamson has done it again.  At 83 he still stands firm.  He shows how central to our society are the cold-hearted high-flyers.  And we have to stop laughing as we have to ask ourselves what can be done about that?

I leave you with this endearing image of his statue in the Ensemble Foyer, contemplating his next play after – as the orb above him reminds us – his “Last Play” in 2020!  May he live (write) for ever.

 ©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026: Mama Does Derby by Clare Watson & Virginia Gay

 

Mama Does Derby by Clare Watson & Virginia Gay. Windmill Production Company in Sydney Festival at Sydney Town Hall, January 15 – 22 2026

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 16


Credits

Co-Creator, Director – Clare Watson; Co-Creator, Writer – Virginia Gay

Assistant Director/Choreographer – Larissa McGowan
Designer – Jonathan Oxlade; Lighting Designer – Lucy Birkinshaw
Musical Director – Joe Lui; Sound Designer – Luke Smiles
Story Consultant – Ivy Miller

Performers:
Amber McMahon; Elvy-Lee Quici
Benjamin Hancock; Antoine Jelk; Dylan Miller
Annabel Matheson; Aud Mason-Hyde; Calliope Jackson

Derby Athletes – Members of the Sydney Roller Derby League
Sydney Derby Team Leader – Nicole “Ziggy” Eyles
Skate Consultant  – Jude ‘Vaderella’ Gaffney 

Hero image photography – Claudio Raschella and Bri Hammond



“A single mum, a teenage daughter, and a new life in a regional town where neither quite fits. Billie is 16 and restless, trying to navigate the chaos of adolescence. Mum, meanwhile, is spinning into a rebellion of her own – in the sweaty, rough and radical world of roller derby.”
https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/mama-does-derby 

I have to call the form of this surprising show a theatrical cartoon Rock’n’Roll Derby, full of symbolism.  What’s surprising is that it succeeds in celebrating women’s overcoming their demons.

When a girl is born resulting from a failed, perhaps abusive relationship, how is her mother to raise her?  Mama Does Derby says go out and achieve in your own right, because your daughter needs you to be the model she needs to overcome her fears.  

So instead of a gloomy view in response to the issue of family breakdown, the show is a rock’n’roll entertainment which has all the women in the audience,  and I suspect some men, whooping and cheering as daughter and mother finally hug and understand each other – and the rock band strikes up for the curtain calls.

There is no curtain, of course, as my photo of the set as the show opens, shows: just the roller derby track, onto which set pieces are rolled on and off by the women rollers scene by scene, of rooms in the house, and a complete rock band.

A throughline in the plot shows the rather satirical episodes with the professional – woman – psychological counsellor working on the assumption that the daughter has mental health problems, and then starts to think the mother has some too. But Mama's success in winning the derby competition puts the counsellor in her place as they hug each other at last.

Of course in cartoon style there’s not much subtlety in the treatment of their demons, though the daughter has nightmares which become an amazing glittery figure played by someone who is, as daughter exclaims, very flexible. A tremendously attractive looking demon indeed.  Unfortunately the cast list supplied doesn’t name each performer’s role.

Though early on I wonder how things would go, in the end Mama Does Derby is drama with a happy ending, and I’m glad it is, for it offers women the encouragement they need to be strong and self-determined.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

 

 

 

 

 

2026: Opera for the Dead - Sydney Festival

 

 

Opera for the Dead by Mindy Meng Wang & Monica Lim in the Sydney Festival at Bell Shakespeare, the Neilson Nutshell, January 15-18 2026

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 15

Credits

Creative Concept and Composition – Monica Lim and Mindy Meng Wang
Dramaturg – Ophelia Huang; Animation – Rel Pham
Set and Lighting Design – Jenny Hector; Choreography – Carol Brown
Costume – Leonas Panjaitan; Sound and Video System Design – Nick Roux

Guzheng – Mindy Meng Wang; Electronics – Monica Lim
Vocals – Yu-Tien Lin; Percussion – Alexander Meagher
Cello – Nils Hobiger

Production Manager – Justin Heaton
Producer – Penelope Leishman & Seb Calabretto, Insite Arts
Sound Engineer – Sascha Budimsk
Hero image photography – Michael Pham



“Inspired by Chinese mourning rituals but speaking to universal truths of grief and remembrance, Mindy Meng Wang and Monica Lim’s multi-sensory journey surrounds you with sound, movement and light.” 
https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/opera-for-the-dead 

As the crowd moves into the performance space  where there are no seats, and people begin to move around and among elements of the set within which are the musicians, singers and electronic keyboard, they find themselves surrounded by devices quite unknown to traditional Chinese opera.

All around them hang 12-inch loudspeakers, facing upwards, with up to four ‘oranges’ on them, made from light-weight plastic, which are vibrating, even jumping up and down, because the speakers, hanging from above, are wired in to the sound of the percussion.

As I saw it, these represented the constant vibrations of the universe.  As the music and singing worked up towards a crescendo approaching the end of the 50 minutes, the oranges bounced more and more until many jumped right out of their concave loudspeaker homes.  Then I understood the concept expressed in the music about death.

Though an individual’s death is an end-point for them, the universe doesn’t die – it continues to vibrate with perhaps extra depth of feeling as each person dies.

So, though I have had only fleeting experiences of Chinese opera and have no understanding of the words being sung, in this very modern abstract presentation in visual effects as well as in sound, instrumental and voice, I found a peace of mind in knowing the universe continues on, while experiencing the feelings, often of despair, at the time of a loved one’s death.  

As a presentation in a cultural festival this is quite remarkable – an original work invoking an ancient culture in the histories of many Australians of Chinese origin, while passing on to others such as myself and other audience members I spoke to, a more philosophical way of thinking about death.

This Opera for the Dead is for the Living, too.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026: Nowhere by Kahlid Abdalla

 

 

Nowhere by Khalid Abdalla. Presented by Fuel UK in the Sydney Festival, 13 – 17 January, 2026 at Roslyn Packer Theatre.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 14

CAST & CREDITS
Writer and performer: Khalid Abdalla
Director: Omar Elerian; Set & Costume Designer: Ti Green; Choreographer: Omar Rajeh
Lighting Designer: Jackie Shemesh; Sound Designer: Panos Chountoulidis
Video Designer: Sarah Readman; Dramaturg: Ruth Little; Writing Mentor: Chris Thorpe
Associate Director: Riwa Saab; Set & Costume Associate: Jida Akil
Associate Lighting Designer: Rajiv Pattani; Associate Video Designer: Virginie Taylor
Lighting Associate: BROCKMAN; Press Representative: Bread & Butter PR
Poster Photography: Helen Murray; Trailer: Jamie Isbell / Jam + Post
Production Manager: Milorad Zakula; 
Company Stage Manager: Hannah Clare; Technical Stage Manager: Rachel Bowen



To say Nowhere is an original piece of theatre production is not sufficient.  It seems rather weird at first as you begin to wonder is this an actor playing himself?  He plainly is performing a script as an actor playing a role; but the role is himself revealing in choreographed, often almost dance-like, movement in response to the story he tells – via a variety of multimedia formats, visual and audio – of his life, born in Egypt and brought when very young by his parents as refugees to London, where Wikipedia records him as

an Egyptian-British actor and activist. He became known after starring in the 2006 film United 93.

Abdalla starred as Amir in The Kite Runner (2007) and acted with Matt Damon in Green Zone (2010), his second film with director Paul Greengrass. Abdalla appears as himself in Jehane Noujaim's documentary on the 2011 Egyptian revolution, The Square, which won the Audience Award at Sundance Festival in 2013. In 2022 and 2023, he starred as Dodi Fayed in seasons 5 and 6 of the historical drama series The Crown, for which he received a Critics' Choice Television Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.

He often appeared to be addressing us directly – even engaging us in an audience participation segment – and yet, it seemed on one occasion, he forgot his lines and had to ask for help from Prompt, who supplied the line he then repeated and continued on.  

Philosophically, at some point, he – in character – queried our perception of ourself compared with the self we would like to be, as if this is a real concern for Khalid.  Yet it’s obvious to me that his success on stage shows that he understands himself very well, in order to be able to act this ‘play’ called Nowhere.

In the end the essence of the play is represented by the white dove of peace trying time after time to find somewhere to land – but finding nowhere in modern times through the days of his great-grandfather, grandfather and father being jailed for their opposition to the British colonial government of Egypt, and the following governments, to the point where if he were to go back to Egypt now, his activism in the 2011 revolution could see him jailed.

And now The Guardian writes ‘An Arab in a post-9/11 world’: Khalid Abdalla’s one-man play about belonging comes to Australia

In Nowhere, The Crown actor interweaves personal experience and family history with commentary on western colonialism and the Israel-Gaza war.  In what is an example of good theatre taking risks, the script includes referring to the recent Bondi shooting in raising the question of the need to recognise the horror of the treatment of Jews in the Holocaust, while maintaining the need to support all people, and peoples, with equal respect – including the Palestinians at the time of the establishment of modern Israel and in Gaza today.

His audience participation game is gently and thoughtfully managed to reveal how multicultural the audience is in today’s Sydney, leaving us to consider the future of the white dove of peace for all.  The stage where he performs, he explains, is a safe place – but he calls it Nowhere, because nowhere else can the dove safely land.

In the light of what has just happened at the Adelaide Writers Festival, Kahlid Abdalla has taken a risk in presenting his life story in such a way, but this is what theatre is for – to reveal what we may not easily accept about human society.  Nowhere is highly recommended in my view.

Khalid Abdalla
performing in his play Nowhere, Sydney Festival 2026

©Frank McKone, Canberra