Grand Theft Theatre; IT-ME TIME; Headliners of Magic; Simply Tremendous; Naomi

The present makes away with a king’s ransom of creative highlights, however what it offers again is priceless – Grand Theft Theatre is a delicate and clever exploration of the important position reminiscence performs in maintaining theatre alive.

Thoughtfully structured devised efficiency layers vigorous bodily and visible theatre with perceptive (and infrequently humorous) musings on the expertise of artists as viewers members. It delves into the essential calls for of the artistic course of, extending a beneficiant invitation to spectators to recall what makes theatre particular to them.

The rising artists behind Pony Cam– Claire Chook, Ava Campbell, William Strom, Dominic Weintraub and Hugo Williams – have a surprisingly unified post-dramatic aesthetic.

They possess the expertise, dedication and approach to make theatre as memorable as most of the artists they admire, and somebody ought to throw cash at them, pronto, to allow them to take their work to the subsequent degree.

In the meantime, Grand Theft Theatre provides an incredible likelihood to collect with like-minded souls, and rekindle your love of an artwork which existed solely within the thoughts for a number of years.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

EXPERIMENTAL
IT-ME TIME Traveller Beta Reside x Social Dis Dance ★★½
Runaway Pageant Park, till October 15

Taiwan has simply opened its borders for guests as COVID-19 restrictions ease after 2½ years; it appears apt, then, that Taiwanese artist Betty Apple leads a rave of types. Recognized for work that seeks to interrogate physique politics by means of being a millennial in post-colonial Taiwan, Apple additionally tends to applicable mass-produced objects meant for eroticism and leisure. In IT-ME TIME, the artist doesn’t stray removed from this motif: she turns right into a “Beta Model Cyborg-Mermaid” from the near-future, full with pretend boobs. The present begins with Apple seemingly trapped in a cluster of blow-up balloons till she emerges because the lead singer of business techno band Social Dis Dance. That is the place the social gathering begins.

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Apple’s persona is paying homage to the hologram singer Hakune Mitsune, besides the Cyborg-Mermaid is actual. Or is she? She prances across the stage, takes swigs from a bottle of white wine (that might actually be water) and urges the viewers to get overrated along with her as a band would at a live performance. “I’m swimming!” the Cyborg-Mermaid chants. “I’m lady!” In the meantime, generic techno beats pump within the background; one other member of the Betty Apple crew follows her with a handheld cellphone digicam hooked up to vivid lights. No matter is captured finally ends up being projected on a big display behind the efficiency. It doesn’t matter the place you look: the display speaks to the bottom and vice versa.

The impact is unwieldly. Whereas a extra beneficiant interpretation of the present can say that it’s a approach of dismantling the false dichotomy between “actual” and “pretend”, it simply looks like a dance social gathering for drunks clawing to be Seen. Whereas the audience-facing aspect of the efficiency (Apple invitations folks to face up or chant along with her, and later will get in amongst them) is entertaining sufficient, there doesn’t appear to be a lot else. The viewers bops alongside. In direction of the tip of IT-ME TIME, Apple has a brand new chant: “Don’t care!” That might be your entire level.
Reviewed by Cher Tan

MAGIC
Headliners of Magic ★★★★
Dom Chambers, Simon Coronel, Vyom Sharma, Lawrence Leung, Trades Corridor, Solidarity Corridor, till October 23

Not because the days of turning water into wine has a superb time been so instantaneously conjured than by Aussie-turned America’s Bought Expertise and Broadway star Dom Chambers, who magics a number of pints of beer from a seemingly empty brown paper bag.

He’s joined on this gobsmacking hour of “How did they do this?” energy by comic Lawrence Leung, a dab hand at snatching phrases from our minds with the disarmingly dorky assist of a bingo tumbler and a wand with a deeply unflattering identify, as gifted by his brother.

Fellow occasional ABC visitor Dr Vyom Sharma can predict numbers with the help of our cellphone calculators, and Simon Coronel, who has twice fooled magician kings Penn and Teller and this yr took out the highest close-up magic prize at FISM, the “olympics of magic”, works good old school card tips. Everyone knows it’s not actual, however when misdirection is that this dazzlingly charming, who cares? Simply seize a bag-bidden pint with them within the bar after.
Reviewed by Stephen A Russell

THEATRE
Naomi ★★★★½
Patrick Livesey, Trades Corridor, Solidarity Corridor, till October 23

A horrible hush descends across the devastating act of suicide. However is our collective incapacity to speak about it exacerbating the insurmountable loneliness felt by far too many Australians?

It’s an anguished query posed by one of many many characters whose pores and skin startlingly proficient performer Patrick Livesey assumes, affecting markedly completely different voices and physicality throughout an emotionally uncooked hour of verbatim theatre.

Their mom took her personal life in 2015, and this highly effective reckoning concerned Livesey conducting 30-plus hours of interviews with household and buddies, attempting to grasp the way it got here to cross.

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Performing Naomi should demand quite a bit from Livesey, as they shift restlessly throughout a darkish stage illuminated by a glowing triangular shrine of types.

There are not any straightforward solutions, however what we’re left with is an impossibly beneficiant act of affection and understanding. A rallying name to pay attention, converse up and look out for each other.
Reviewed by Stephen A Russell

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COMEDY
Simply Tremendous ★★★
Eddie Pattison, Trades Corridor, till October 23

Eddie Pattison is an interesting, weak and at instances hilarious performer – nonetheless the over-arching theme of Simply Tremendous is overbearing and superfluous.

Navigating the world of “superforecasters” – those that use statistical evaluation to offer predictions on future world occasions – is much from sufficient to carry collectively an hour.

Pattison’s recollections of their childhood in Brisbane, their acknowledgments of their very own psychological well being issues and tales of gender and sexuality revelations all land soundly. To not point out a barely disturbing acknowledgment of how they procured their earrings.

However when introduced again to recorded interviews with family members that try and confirm if they’re certainly a “superforecaster” – the mirth within the room is deflated by means of meandering conversations and tedious test-marks.

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Pattison doesn’t want to make use of such an obscure underlying motif. Their anecdotes carry themselves. With a number of tightenings of their supply and confidence within the materials, they’ll be one to observe on the comedy pageant subsequent yr.
Reviewed by Tyson Wray

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