Beneath the Surface review | Edge of the Heart Productions | The Motley Bahaus

In Beneath the Surface, four short Australian plays uncover the tensions, relationships and stories that sit beneath ordinary life. Presented by Edge of the Heart Productions, the plays vary in style, direction and genre, offering distinct perspectives on contemporary life.

Adèle Shelley’s Coffee in the Time of Coronavirus brings two neighbours together during Melbourne’s lockdown, with their relationship developing through conversations from their adjoining balconies. Shelley grounds the piece in recognisable reality, but gives it an unpredictable quality that leaves you wondering where an otherwise mundane conversation might lead. Carissa McPherson and Paul Canlan deliver lovely performances as the unlikely neighbours forced to become friends, discovering that their assumptions about each other conceal far more complicated personalities.

Holy Fool review | Fabio Motta | Theatre Works

Eight hundred years after he gave up wealth, embraced poverty and began preaching a radical message of compassion, Saint Francis of Assisi remains an oddly relevant figure. A young man who abandoned the life expected of him, Francis chose instead to live simply, care for the marginalised and find the sacred in the everyday, including famously chatting to birds.

Fabio Motta’s Holy Fool takes that unlikely saint and turns his story into a clown show that is as interested in questioning Francis as celebrating him. Developed between Melbourne and Padua, Italy, the solo work places a naïve knight-turned-hermit in a world where devotion, absurdity and the very idea of holiness happily collide.

Savages review | Theatre Works

First staged in 2013, Patricia Cornelius’ Savages was prompted by the death of Dianne Brimble, who died aboard the Pacific Sky cruise ship in September 2002 after becoming entangled with a group of men on board. Rather than reconstruct the events directly, Cornelius used them to explore Australian masculinity, mateship and misogyny. 13 years on, its portrait of male camaraderie turning sinister remains uncomfortably relevant.

For this 2026 production at Theatre Works, director Kitan Petkovski takes an unconventional approach to Cornelius’ four 'ordinary Aussie blokes', casting four women and non-binary actors, Laila Thaker, Nicci Wilks, Zoe Boesen and AYA, in the roles. Making masculinity itself part of the subject allows Petkovski to examine the pack mentality, power and violence at the heart of the play from a different perspective.

GG review | Conjah + PSEUDO | Arts House

"GG" is gaming shorthand for "Good Game", usually said at the end of a match. In GG, the term becomes the starting point for a performance about control and choice. Using street dance, motion capture, digital avatars and gaming technology, this collaboration between collectives CONJAH and PSEUDO Studio ask who gets to decide what happens, who is being controlled and what it feels like to have no control at all. Rather than telling a conventional story, GG plays out this exploration through movement, technology and the relationship between the dancers and the digital world around them.

Unfortunately, these ideas never quite come together, instead feeling like a series of disconnected scenes. One involves watching a hand discovering numerous items, including a gaming controller, inside a puppet-theatre-like structure, creating the impression of a video game being operated from within the stage. It’s fascinating to watch, and this has to be one of the most expressive hands I’ve seen, moving, reacting and communicating with remarkable precision. There’s a real sense of curiosity as the hand interacts with the objects around it, but it doesn’t seem to lead anywhere.

Cleopatra & Antony review | Melbourne Shakespeare Company | fortyfivedownstairs

History remembers Cleopatra and Mark Antony primarily as lovers, but romance was only one part of what brought them together. Cleopatra was a ruler fighting to preserve Egypt's independence, while Antony was a Roman general caught in the bitter struggle for control of Rome. Their relationship unfolded as the Roman Republic collapsed, making their personal choices inseparable from the political forces that would prove to be their undoing.

While I knew the broad outlines of their story, I wasn’t especially familiar with Shakespeare’s play. Some reading beforehand revealed a more politically charged drama than the popular image of the doomed lovers suggests. Melbourne Shakespeare Company’s production of Cleopatra & Antony, directed by Sonya Suares, brings its intrigue, tension and ambition into fortyfivedownstairs’ basement.