Beasts of Burden and Other Party Guests review | Bluestone Church Arts Space

Life often feels like a balancing act between the burdens we carry and the faces we present to the world. Personal anxieties, responsibilities and private struggles rarely disappear, instead following us through our daily interactions. In Beast of Burden and Other Party Guests, cabaret performer Miss Friby transforms these universal experiences into a bold, highly physical work that blends comedy, dance and theatrical spectacle. The result is an unpredictable exploration of the "beasts" that accompany us through life, and what happens when we finally invite them into the room.

The party kicks off with Miss Friby encased in a gorilla suit, performing a vigorous dance routine. She gradually removes the costume piece by piece, suggesting the shedding of a persona, burden or inner beast. Yet the transformation is not finished. Even after revealing the human figure underneath, she continues to move with the same physicality, blurring the boundary between human and beast with the implication that the two are intertwined rather than separate identities. This idea is reinforced in later party games, during which Miss Friby mimes animalistic gestures and lip syncs a cacophony of beastly sounds that are abruptly curtailed.

Anna X review | Red Stitch

Few real-life figures have captured the public imagination quite like Anna Delvey. The Russian-born con artist, whose deception of New York's wealthy elite became a global media sensation, blurred the line between ambition, performance and fraud. Her story raises intriguing questions about status, privilege and society's willingness to believe those who appear successful, making her an ideal subject for theatre.

Joseph Charlton's Anna X takes inspiration from Delvey's rise and fall, using her notoriety as a lens through which to examine identity, aspiration and the allure of reinvention. Centred on a fictitious relationship with app developer and tech CEO Arial, the play explores success in an age where image and influence can be as valuable as truth, though its focus occasionally drifts from its most compelling figure.

A Year Without Summer review | Rising: Melbourne | Arts Centre Melbourne

Florentina Holzinger's A Year Without Summer takes its title from the extraordinary events of 1816, when the eruption of Mount Tambora in present-day Indonesia triggered a global climatic disaster. The resulting crop failures, famine and unseasonably cold weather led to what became known as the "Year Without a Summer", exposing both the fragility of human civilisation and the unpredictable power of the natural world.

Among those affected by this turbulent period was Mary Shelley, who spent the summer of 1816 confined indoors near Lake Geneva with Percy Bysshe Shelley, Claire Clairmont, and Lord Byron. Inspired by conversations of science, mortality and the possibility of creating life, Shelley began writing Frankenstein, a novel that continues to shape understandings of humanity’s relationship with technology and scientific ambition. Holzinger draws on this as the foundation for her production’s exploration of the body and its transformation through medicine and technology.

The Supposed To Be review | Rising: Melbourne | Footscray Community Arts

In Chenturan Aran's The Supposed To Be, people can have a clone of themselves made and observe them living the life and being the person they were supposed to be. In this instance, Kavitha, wanted to be an actor, but due to the pressure of being in a migrant family, settled for a job in the corporate world. 

Over the years, Kavitha has been granted opportunities to interact with her clone, a young woman called Kaye, but without ever knowing who Kavitha us. She is explicitly warned never to let Kaye see her, as she is not meant to see or learn who she became to be. However, during one encounter, she seemingly forgets this instruction and quite quickly reveals her face to Kaye with little hesitation. Strangely, it seems that Aran is equally unconcerned with the consequences of this decision, because Kavitha faces no repercussions for breaking such a serious rule.

Prima Facie review | Comedy Theatre

Prima Facie returns to Melbourne seven years after its Australian debut, reuniting director Lee Lewis and Sheridan Harbridge in the role that first captivated audiences in 2019. Since then, the one-woman play has become an international phenomenon, resonating deeply through its confronting examination of consent, power and the failures of the legal system. 

Centred on ambitious criminal barrister Tessa, the play traces the collapse of someone who has built her life around faith in the law, only to find herself failed by the very system she once defended. Suzie Miller’s writing is sharp, raw and intelligent, balancing legal argument with human vulnerability. The result is theatre that is urgent rather than didactic, forcing the audience into uncomfortable proximity with the realities it explores.

Retrograde review | Melbourne Theatre Company

Ryan Calais Cameron’s Retrograde is a tightly written, gripping drama that transforms a pivotal moment in Hollywood screen legend Sidney Poitier’s early career into an examination of power, compromise, and integrity. Set against the anti-communist paranoia of 1950s Hollywood, the play's dynamic dialogue and strong emotional undercurrent explores the impossible burden placed upon Black artists navigating a deeply hostile industry.

Donné Ngabo delivers a magnetic performance as Sidney, capturing the actor’s charisma and the immense pressure simmering beneath his composed exterior. He infuses the role with impressive nuance, where instances of restraint, vulnerability, and defiance emerge with equal force, while keeping the tension alive throughout even the most intense exchanges.

Future Loves Burning / Age Of Extremes review | The Motley Bauhaus

The Motley Bauhaus houses three performance spaces, but that still is not enough for Tim Wotherspoon’s Future Loves Burning / Age Of Extremes. The writer-director has deemed the existing areas insufficient and instead taken over the entire venue for these two one-act plays. The result is a sprawling, chaotic and deliberately overwhelming experience that pulls the audience through shifting worlds of heightened language, absurdity and backstage dysfunction.

Wotherspoon uses this space in a captivating way, particularly with the first play Future Loves Burning, transforming the way the audience engages with it. Staging most of the play in the round in this space is inventive and makes it more intriguing, with the stage itself becoming a small seating bank. The doors and entrances, some of which I didn’t realise existed, keep the drama in motion and give the production an unpredictable intensity.