Mass Hysteria brings church ritual into cabaret at Melbourne Fringe

Jens Radda’s connection to church is more than a starting point for cabaret show Mass Hysteria. Having grown up attending a Seventh-day Adventist church, he knows the practices of worship first-hand, giving the show a personal perspective on what happens when those familiar forms are taken out of their traditional setting and placed inside a cabaret. We spoke with Radda about his religious upbringing, the appeal of ceremony and why a night at the theatre might not be so different from a Sunday service.

Radda’s time in the church brings both irony and affection to the religious rituals at the heart of Mass Hysteria and the way they are reimagined. "There’s definitely irony in it, but there’s also a lot of intrigue and affection," he tells me. "I grew up around this incredible theatre of ritual: hundreds of people singing together, ceremony, pageantry, symbolism…it’s pretty camp! Now I’m basically taking those ingredients and asking 'what happens if we put this in a NutriBullet and blend it with drag, cabaret and performance art?' It feels strangely full-circle."

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.