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Ben Keene wrote a new post 2 years, 9 months ago
So long and thanks for all the fish Team Witness – Alison Croggon, Carissa Lee, Robert Reid and Ben Keene – got together for a final podcast yarn […]
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Robert Reid wrote a new post 2 years, 9 months ago
Theatre isn’t in trouble in this country because of the pandemic. As Robert Reid explains, the problems are much deeper – and older – than the Covid-19 crisis.
People are going to blame the pandemic. Peopl […]
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Monique Grbec wrote a new post 2 years, 9 months ago
La Mama’s Cactus is a sweet coming-of-age tale that addresses the agony of infertility, says Monique Grbec
Cactus at La Mama is a coming-of-age tragi-comedy that brims with laugh-out-loud moments. Written by e […]
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Alison Croggon wrote a new post 2 years, 9 months ago
Childrens performance critic Gully Thompson says that Parrwang Lifts the Sky is a thrilling example of performance for young people
Children’s theatre is often at its best when it takes risks. As a child, I r […]
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Emilie Collyer wrote a new post 2 years, 9 months ago
Emilie Collyer traces the multiple collaborations behind Chamber Made’s bold new work SYSTEM_ERROR
I’m sitting in the semi-dark in the main hall at Arts House in North Melbourne, watching a development day of […]
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Ben Keene wrote a new post 2 years, 9 months ago
The Witness Interview: Stephen Armstrong and Dan Koerner ‘The experience of 2020 really needs to be celebrated and used as a platform for diving into the future … we mus […]
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Robert Reid wrote a new post 2 years, 10 months ago
Robert Reid attends The Wilds on the opening night of Rising, and finds that it’s a mixed experience
Described as a “supernatural forest of ice, art, sound and moonlight”, The Wilds at Rising is colle […]
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Robert Reid wrote a new post 2 years, 10 months ago
The feminist scifi Mara Korper is challenging, enjoyable and possibly the smartest theatre you’ll see this year, says Robert Reid
We’re shown to our seats in the plastic boxes and told to select a card from o […]
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Monique Grbec wrote a new post 2 years, 10 months ago
Maryanne Sam’s comedy of cultural errors leaves you wanting more, says Monique Grbec
To mark the 1871 arrival of Christian missionaries in the Torres Strait Islands, every year on July 1 there is a holiday t […]
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Monique Grbec wrote a new post 2 years, 10 months ago
This deep-listening show summons connection with the seven seasons of Country, says Monique Grbec
Seasons in Blak Box is an Urban Theatre Projects deep-listening experience curated by Daniel Browning that […]
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Monique Grbec wrote a new post 2 years, 10 months ago
Confronting the reality of Black deaths in custody, Big House Dreaming is a powerful work that invites us to question what is wrong with our justice systems, says Monique Grbec
In a month when three First […]
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Anne-Marie Peard wrote a new post 2 years, 11 months ago
Midsumma show F*ck Fabulous is exhilarating variety that celebrates every kind of queerness, says Anne-Marie Peard
The Fairfax stage is piled with a ceiling-high pyramid of coloured clothes. As an exquisite […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 2 years, 11 months ago
Jonathan Biggins’ new show serves up Keating’s greatest hits, but never quite escapes its sketch show origins, says Ben Brooker
More than any other recent Labor leader, Paul Keating is most like the pro […]
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Anne-Marie Peard changed their profile picture 2 years, 11 months ago
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Gully Thompson wrote a new post 2 years, 11 months ago
Alan Brough’s new musical for children suffers from thoughtless stereotyping, says youth critic Gully Thompson
Children’s theatre is important. It acts as a doorway into adult theatre and it shapes how you […]
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Robert Reid wrote a new post 2 years, 11 months ago
After more than a decade apart, comedy duo Lano and Woodley have lost none of their charm, says Robert Reid
The most remarkable thing about comedy duo Lano and Woodley – the alter egos of Colin Lane and F […]
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Monique Grbec wrote a new post 2 years, 11 months ago
Shiralee Hood brings a cracking wit to her Kulin-centric tour of Naarm for her Comedy Festival Show, says Monique Grbec
Naarm is a regular top five on the world’s most liveable cities because of people like t […]
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Robert Reid wrote a new post 2 years, 11 months ago
Malthouse Theatre’s Because the Night is impressive in many ways, but it’s only a first step in realising what immersive theatre can be, says Robert Reid
I walk from Flinders St Station to the Malthouse, b […]
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Really enjoyed this review, thanks Robert–also Alison’s which I managed to read somehow. I’m glad I saw this show, not least because it made me think about what I’m looking for in an “immersive theatre experience”.
I saw ‘A Midnight Visit’ in Sydney a few years ago, and on reflection, though I had many criticisms of that show, I think it was on the whole more successful, though less ambitious in many ways than this one. That show was also melodramatic, though that didn’t bother me much in either case (Jennifer Vuletic’s Gertrude was the clear standout here, in a strangely shouty cast performing intimately in the round). But ‘A Midnight Visit’ was more poetic, in the sense that it didn’t care about telling a story and was more about resonant moments with various ghost or ghost-like characters–like the mysterious figures who did actually have one-on-one interactions with me as I wandered the periphery.
This show, with the Hamlet-inspired plot, the hints of a complex backstory about a logging town, the Aussie vernacular (“You need to start stepping up, Hamlet”), the diverse styles of the rooms, and the maze-like feel of everything, promised intriguing depth but like you I didn’t feel like I got to experience it, and I suspect that it wouldn’t be there on a second visit–the notes and details I examined were not as solid as ‘A Midnight Visit’. In this case I suspect a cast twice as large would’ve made it all a lot more interesting.
I think I want to pay more (like as much as double) for a longer experience with more depth. Something more like an escape room, where you explore and learn and slowly get introduced to a dramatic world that does finally come to a close, but where knowledge is rewarded and influences the scenes that you see. Or where the audience is divided into “teams” in some way that has an impact on how everyone experiences the performance–some way that your choices matter, more than just the randomness of wandering around. At one point in this show a character went into a secret room with a coded lock, and I opened it with a number in a fairly obvious place. The other audience members present spontaneously applauded, and we went into the secret room, where the actor shouted at us in the confined space and then left. But–like the black corridor room mentioned–it didn’t really add anything.
In many ways the best immersive theatre I’ve seen was a Melbourne Fringe Fest show in an actual sharehouse where the audience was repeatedly divided by choice and by ushers into rooms with set scenes–you didn’t get to see everything, but the intimacy was a lot more charged. Eventually I ended up by myself in the candle-lit bathroom listening to a black widow–immersed in the bathtub monologuing about her dead mother–who subtly invited me to sprinkle her in rose petals. Now that’s what I’m looking for. I completely agree with your final point that we’re yet to see the best of immersive theatre.
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Robert Reid wrote a new post 2 years, 11 months ago
Insider jokes on classic horror tropes and vaudeville clowning make Innes Lloyd’s latest show a fun ride, says Robert Reid
The newest work from comedy duo Innes Lloyd – briefly at The Butterfly Club for the […]
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Ben Keene wrote a new post 2 years, 11 months ago
The Witness Interview: Daniel Schlusser ‘I’m absolutely one for watching a performance that is held by a beautifully written play … but if it’s the onl […]
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right on!