The world is ending. We are facing an intense heatwave, crops and animals are dying and people are starving to death. In Mitch Jones' solo physical theatre work AutoCannibal, we witness one of the last people on Earth spending his final days living with the same ignorance and self-destructive mode that led to civilisation's doom in the first place.
From a design point of view, the show is highly successful in creating a grim and desolate environment. The lighting design by Paul Lim and sound design by Bonnie Knight (with contributions from Marco Cher-Gibard) is a constant reminder of the bleak future that awaits our protagonist (and us). They work together incredibly well to create tension and unease right through to the final moments. Similarly, Michael Baxter's minimal scaffolding set design conveys a reality void of any human warmth.
The end of the world is nigh. In fact, it is just mere hours away. But for seven people there is something more pressing at hand. These seven actors have come together for one final time to stage Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Eventually what is fiction and what is reality is not as clear as it once was as the group attempts to accept what is happening outside while remaining committed to their last rehearsal and to their roles.
As Hamlet's story unfolds, links are made between the tale and the actors' personal lives that are impossible to ignore, and everything begins to slowly and painfully unravel. The ensemble - Chris Beckey, Katrina Cornwell, Nicole Harvey, Thomas Hutchins, Polly Sará, Peta Ward and Mitch Wood - deliver utterly engrossing performances as the actors in the play and as the characters within the play of the play. They find nuanced balanced of showing the truth of both their characters and highlighting the similarities and differences to who they are playing.
With our planet about to implode, a lucky few citizens board a spacecraft to take them to safety on a deserted planet. Presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, The Yonder follows three people on board this ship and looks at the tension, affection and horror that eventuates during these trying times.
The costuming is simple yet effective in this show, with the cast donning basic white and silver clothing - different to each other but uniform with their theme. While there are minimal props used, what is used is creative in its representation, particularly the hairdryers and socks as guns and space squid aliens respectively.
While the show has a lo-fi aesthetic, it unfortunately doesn't support the work as it results in performances by Shannan Lim, Elizabeth Davie and Ezel Doruk that don't seem believable with dialogue and reactions that are not always engaging. There
are some humorous moments throughout the show which makes use of the trio's experience in clowning and absurdism, including Davie as the
CEO of the shuttle company and the romance between Lim and Doruk's
characters but none of this ever culminates to anything of note or play a role in any
choices these characters face.
The direction of the show creates an awkward pace with too many silences and the big moments of the show are never played out to invest the audience in the outcomes. There are far too many short scenes with blackouts that constantly prevent you from connecting with the work being performed.
It's the end of the world and there is nothing you can do to save yourself or your loved ones. So what do you do? Do you play a good game of scrabble or become an alcoholic? Or do you choose to masturbate in public? After all, if there's no tomorrow what's the worst punishment you'll face? Presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, Matthew Sini's Prayers To Broken Stone is a family comedy dealing with the apocalypse, or is it an apocalypse dealing with a family comedy?
The opening scene takes places two hours before the Earth is hit by a meteorite and begins as a tableau of a dinner party from hell with a young woman lying dead on the kitchen floor from a stab wound. From here, each scene goes further into the past, initially in two hour jumps to what then becomes months until we finish with the first scene taking place two years ago.
Starting with such a dramatic ending and a scene that already raises many questions, it is vital that the tension is maintained throughout Prayers To Broken Stone, and unfortunately this production is unable to do so. Part of the difficulty is that while it's labelled as a comedy, it's not often clear if we are meant to be watching a comedy or a drama or a thriller as tropes from each genre are used but there isn't a consistent approach to help build the foundations of the story.
No apocalypse ever runs smoothly and in The Yonder, things could not get any more comedically complicated for the remaining citizens of Earth on board a flight to take them to a deserted planet and apparent safety. This collaborative work between Shannan Lim, Elizabeth Davie and Ezel Doruk on the issues of race, identity and migration is sure to entertain at this year's Melbourne Fringe Festival. Oh, and there's also alien space squids.
"The Yonder is the ship that evacuates the last of humanity out from the burning ball of mess that Earth has become. It’s as much a spacecraft as it is a budget airline, and the audience are the passengers," Lim tells me. "Elizabeth, Ezel and I each play two characters, and they all squabble. Elizabeth is the captain, and the CEO of the shuttle company. Ezel is first officer and an abducted Turkish lounge singer. I am the engineer on board The Yonder and an alien squid baby—I’m really looking forward to this, I think it’s so horrifying and cute."
This is the first time the three performers have collaborated on a work and if Lim has it his way, it hopefully won't be the last. "I met Elizabeth and Ezel separately last year, but we started talking and hanging out and going to see plays, films and gigs. We’ve become very close and will become even closer, I’m sure, from having created The Yonder together," he says. "Part of our process is to just talking about what’s going on with us and the sociopolitical environment around us, then figuring out how to cartoonify that. Elizabeth’s good with structuring the story, and Ezel has lots of playful ideas. They’re both so perceptive and open and committed in general, they’re excellent collaborators."
There's a new apocalypse in town, and it's a musical; a zombie musical. Written and produced by Anthony Crowley, Motor-Mouth Loves Suck-Face takes place during the final days on Earth before a zombie apocalypse will wipe out humanity. So how does one prepare for such a catastrophic end? For high-school geeks, Motor-Mouth and Suck-Face, it's to throw a party to end all parties.
"Motor-Mouth Loves Suck-Face is high on energy and absurdity and music. The characters are a mix of archetype with their own idiosyncratic twist, which makes them real in a human sense, but stuck in our absurd world," Crowley tells me. "The story is told out of sequence as we zip back and forwards through time. The plot is bizarre and has its roots in comedy shows like Red Dwarf, The Young Ones and The Mighty Boosh, where the story is crazy but there’s also a sustained logic and the characters - as well as the audience - are completely trapped in the craziness."
The end of the world is nigh. In fact, it is just mere hours away. But for seven people there is something more pressing at hand. These seven actors have come together for one final time to stage Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Eventually what is fiction and what is reality is not as clear as it once was as the group attempts to accept what is happening outside while remaining committed to their last rehearsal and to their roles.
With our planet about to implode, a lucky few citizens board a spacecraft to take them to safety on a deserted planet. Presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, The Yonder follows three people on board this ship and looks at the tension, affection and horror that eventuates during these trying times.
It's the end of the world and there is nothing you can do to save yourself or your loved ones. So what do you do? Do you play a good game of scrabble or become an alcoholic? Or do you choose to masturbate in public? After all, if there's no tomorrow what's the worst punishment you'll face? Presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, Matthew Sini's Prayers To Broken Stone is a family comedy dealing with the apocalypse, or is it an apocalypse dealing with a family comedy? 
