The Trung Sisters - Big West Festival preview

The Trung Sisters were two Vietnamese warrior princesses who trained an army of 80,000 people and led their country to freedom in the 5th Century. During the Big West Festival, 25 students from Footscray North Primary School will re-tell their story. Staged in Footscray's newly refurbished rotunda at McNab Reserve the evening performance will include martial arts, traditional dancing, opera and large-scale puppetry. 

"The students have built giant puppets, will enact powerful battle scenes and perform a script guided by their writing based on this epic story," explains devisor and director, Jo Trevathan. "The grade 5/6’s have interpreted a real and important cultural story that deals with big themes of love war, sacrifice, bravery and humanity, things we presume children will not understand but I have found they have strong opinions about. In the West where we have over 80 cultures and 140 languages sharing cultural stories such as The Trung Sisters, increases understanding by discovering what we have in common and where we are unique. In the current climate of cultural diversity and political division it is important to understand and appreciate this true story."

Made In China review

You wouldn't expect the seedy underworld of Dublin to have much in common with martial arts, but in Mark O'Rowe's dark comedy, Made In China, these two worlds collide for three men, who are all facing their own power struggle with each other and gang politics. One wants to get out, one wants to get in and the other one want to remain on top.

Unfortunately, the story moves at an incredibly slow pace, with nothing happening until roughly the final 20 minutes of this two-hour play. Even when the plot reaches its climax, it still feels drawn out and lacks any suspense. There is minimal character development, which has these people come across as monotonous beings. Even by the end of the show, there is very little that has actually changed for these people in the greater scheme of things. 

High up in the gang food chain, Kirby (Stuart Jeanfield) is such a weird character that his menace and aggressiveness is farcical, and not in a good way. In fact, I found a lot of the humour in this to be quite a miss, particular the cringe inducing sexual overtone scenes with Kirby and his Nik Naks crisps. Hughie (Vaughn Rae) is more or less a passive pawn in his power struggle with Kirby from beginning to end. Damien Harrison as Paddy is fortunate enough to play a character that at least gets to go on an emotional journey and is somewhat changed by the end of the proceedings, even if the way it occurs seems forced.