The Audition review | Outer Urban Projects | La Mama Theatre

Working with emerging artists who were also asylum seekers and immigrants, Outer Urban Projects have brought together a mix of writers and actors to explore the process of auditioning through two different lenses. One of these being for performance roles and investigating the power plays that are present between an actor, director and audience, and the other being asylum seekers auditioning to be permitted to live in this country. 

The Audition includes work from seven theatre writers (Christos Tsiolkas, Melissa Reeves, Milad Norouzi, Patricia Cornelius, Sahra Davoudi, Tes Lyssiotis and Wahibe Moussa) that examine the commonalities of these auditions. While not all of these are as powerful or engrossing as they could be due to writing and/or performances, each story highlights various issues pertaining to asylum seekers and immigrants. In one, an Iranian woman (Sahra Davoudi) is reading for the role of Hecuba from Euripides’ The Trojan Women only to have the Australian director (Peter Paltos) force his western interpretation of what a victim should look and act like. Later, these two actors meet again as an immigration officer and an asylum seeker, where Davoudi must once pass an audition, this time to prove herself to be in need of asylum.

['fraktʃəd] fractured review - Melbourne Fringe

We are now living in a dystopian world of the named and the unnamed. Where safety and comfort are a thing of the past and children are now brought up in a society where the only games they remember are guessing how many bombs are going to go off in the night. Adam J.A. Cass' Fractured, explores this frightening world through five "broken" souls. 

Danelle Wynne is the standout of the cast as Astrid, the almost feral child who is too afraid and suspicious of anyone to let her guard down. Her animal like qualities and habits show how deeply she has been affected by her experiences and are a strong contrast to the rest of the people around her, such as Suzi Loo played by Nicole Morgan. Morgan is also strong in her character and her concluding scenes were completely and utterly engrossing. Rounding out the great cast were Natalie-Lynne Pillar, Josh Vasilev and Amy Firth.