How to Build a Universe, to me, almost looks archaeological: the sprawled objects spotlit in the dark to be personally discovered and interpreted like bones and fragments, rather than sold to audiences as a proud whole. The exhibition posits: it’s futile to reach for an objective collection of an intricate world and, instead, personal responses, self-aware of their subjective nature even if they draw from scientific method, can build our knowledge of the world. Creativity destabilises information.
Cousins, a new release from New Zealand, has its heart in its throat, harmonising a driftless protagonist with the enduring love of her whanau (Māori for extended family).
Tears brimmed my eyes as I walked down the dark street from Theatreworks to the car park building past partygoers starting their Saturday night strutting in sleek dresses. Never had I been so viscerally affected by a play to the point it altered my psychology. The Gospel According to Jesus Queen of Heaven made me euphoric, and I felt healed.
This Genuine Moment holds you in the orbit of Riley and Louis’ conversation as they take clumsy steps to embrace emotional transparency with themselves and others.
Malthouse blesses the Melburnian who has been craving such a transportive journey. Unless flying across the trans-Tasman bubble, the only way to elude Australia’s tight borders might be to escape as an Elsinore ghost and freely travel to another realm – if only for the night.
In this version of Lope de Vega’s Fuente Ovejuna!, the play emphasises themes of collective action and community agency, circling back again and again to gender and class struggle.