Slop review | Darebin Arts Speakeasy

In 2025, Merriam-Webster named "AI slop" as its word of the year, describing the flood of low-quality content created by AI for clicks and monetisation. A year earlier, composer Aviva Endean and choreographer Rebecca Jensen were developing Slop, the follow-up to their 2023 work Slip. This experimental performance pulls audiences into a chaotic landscape driven by digital overload, environmental instability, and the constant buzz of contemporary life. Through movement and sound, the production reflects on confusion, distraction, and the difficulty of distinguishing meaning from the endless barrage of information surrounding us.



An instrument crafted by Endean opens the show. It's a maze-like construction of pipes and tubes, that when blown into releases an almost primitive sound that carries a calm, soothing quality. This early stillness sits in deliberate contrast to what unfolds, marking out a brief moment of clarity before giving way to a fuller, more active sonic and physical terrain. Jensen appears holding a lit candle and removes a large clump of hair from inside the pipes, turning a simple blockage into something visceral and unsettling. The instrument is dragged backstage, and the piece spills into its slop state, where structure breaks down and materials start to build and overlap.



Gag Reflex review | La Mama Theatre

After realising that Schoolies in Fiji isn’t exactly free, three high school friends become increasingly desperate to figure out how to fund the trip. Cue a plotline that feels lifted straight from the world of American coming-of-age comedies like Blockers or Booksmart, packed with crass humour, fictionial sexual misadventures and painful learning curves.

Flick’s Gag Reflex adopts that mood wholeheartedly, delivering plenty of outrageous jokes while still allowing growth amongst its protagonists. Beneath the absurdity and sexual comedy is an astute exploration of friendship, insecurity and the confusion of teenage adolescence. It’s also very funny, leaning confidently into awkwardness, vulgarity and chaos without losing sight of the emotional stakes underneath.

Stuck review | La Mama Theatre

Two women work in a supermarket deli: Old One and Young One. Young One is energetic, sprightly and optimistic, convinced the job is only temporary until she saves enough money to pursue the life and career she really wants. Old One, meanwhile, is cynical and worn down by years of routine, approaching both the work and the world with a much harder edge. Their contrasting perspectives sparks immediate friction, as Stuck explores how their personalities clash, challenge, and influence one another over time.

Megan Twycross raises questions about ageism, motherhood and the obstacles many women face in breaking free from cycles that quietly tighten around them, becoming increasingly difficult to escape. Twycross finds a strong fusion of absurdist humour and emotional truth, using comedy to highlight the frustration, exhaustion and even resentment and anger that sit beneath the characters’ daily grind.

Waitress review | Her Majesty's Theatre

Based on the 2007 film of the same name, the musical Waitress follows Jenna, a small-town waitress and talented pie maker trapped in an unhappy marriage as she searches for a way to reclaim her independence. Set in a working diner, the story blends humour and heartbreak as Jenna forms unexpected connections that begin to shift her perspective on love, freedom and self-worth.

The plot is nothing groundbreaking, however it does get into problems with how writer Jessie Nelson handles its more sensitive themes. The domestic violence between Jenna and her husband Earl is uncomfortably light, and an affair with an obstetrician should be seen as immoral rather than romantic. Threads are introduced but never fully developed, most notably the pie competition, which builds expectation but doesn’t lead to any meaningful consequence. As a result, the narrative momentum can be uneven, even when the surface of the show is engaging.

The Glass Menagerie review | Melbourne Theatre Company

Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie follows the Wingfield family living in a cramped St Louis apartment as Amanda struggles to secure a future for her two adult children, Tom and Laura, while each of them quietly wrestles with duty, escape and personal limitation. A memory play told through Tom’s narration, it moves between present action and recollection as past and emotion blur. In this Melbourne Theatre Company production, director Mark Wilson delivers a reimagined staging with choices that significantly reshape its familiar tone and structure.



Wilson attempts to introduce new perspectives into the production, however his two boldest decisions are less successful than envisioned. The first act, which Wilson refers to as The Wingfields of America in reference to an earlier version of the story, is played as a comedy-drama, with the second act shifting into overt tragedy.



Bernie Dieter’s Club Kabarett review | Meat Market

It's been just over a year since Bernie Deiter captivated Melbourne audiences with Club Kabarett, and while several acts are the same, it is still bursting with energy, dazzling with skill and reaffirming exactly why it struck a chord the first time around. Through circus, cabaret and live music, it becomes a rousing invitation to let go of restraint and jump into joy, resistance and collective release.



The contortionism from Soliana Erse is once again, jaw dropping to watch. It's one thing to (literally) bend over backwards and turn your head around but the speed and the smoothness at which she does this is mesmerising. Similarly, Jacqueline Furey’s fire act is, quite simply, hot, hot, hot. Flames lick her body and then some, and you can feel the heat and know this isn’t smoke and mirrors, it’s edge-of-your-seat realness.



Spoons review | Damian Callinan | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | Arts Centre Melbourne

One-man show Spoons wraps humour, grief and stubborn independence into the story of an ageing widower who refuses to be neatly packed away. Following 84-year-old Stan as he navigates life after loss, the piece balances wit with a sobering look at what it means to grow older, be managed, and ultimately be remembered. It’s playful in places, unexpectedly moving in others, and anchored by a character who is endearing and confronting in his refusal to let go of the life he’s built.



Damian Callinan does a lovely job as Stan, with Emilie Collyer’s direction giving the portrayal restraint and clarity that lets Stan breathe. There’s a gentle physicality to the performance, and his casual delivery of lines suggests a man content to spend his remaining days appreciating the present, even with the emptiness that lingers since the death of his wife. Also written by Callinan, the dialogue is distinctly Australian, peppered with local references and a dry, familiar sense of humour.