Black Is The Colour - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

New theatre company Deafferent Theatre is just a little bit deafferent, in that they create new and engaging pieces of work for hearing and deaf audiences. For their first production, presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, they have chosen Daniel Keene's Black Is The Colour, which is performed entirely in Auslan.

The story revolves around two friends and their experiences with domestic violence. Catherine (Anna Seymour) is a victim of physical abuse from her husband, while her best friend Irene (Hilary Fisher) struggles to makes her understand the situation she is in. This production results in a unique exploration regarding loss of voice: in the text, the two characters have lost their voices and in reality, so too have the people of the Deaf community. There are some powerfully directed scenes by Jessica Moody where the characters express their rage and frustration by letting out a scream only to have the room remain empty with silence.

___day Night's Dream review | Melbourne Fringe Festival

One delightful certainty during the Melbourne Fringe Festival is that there will be a number of performances being held in random and uncommon locations, and ____day Night's Dream is another great example of this. This immersive show explores the dreams of seven people, and it does so on a 16th floor apartment overlooking the city.

Interestingly, the dreams are all based on the performers' (Iryna Byeylyayeva, James Christensen, Aram Geleris, Daniel Holmes, Madeleine Johnson, Sara Laurena and Freya McGrath) own dreams, and performing them within the confines of the apartment creates a literal intimacy as well as a metaphorical one, having been invited into this very personal space, to be privy to these personal dreams.

Jugg Life review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Arts House

There was a time when juggling was simply a person throwing a handful of balls in the air and keeping them there. While it is skillful, there is not much you can do with it to keep audiences entertained for a prolonged period. However, presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, jugglers Byron Hutton and Joe Fisher breathe amazing life into the art form with a highly engaging circus show, aptly titled Jugg Life.

While the two use a variety of balls, juggling clubs and rings for their acts, it is the incorporation of music, percussion and their innovation in challenging what juggling is, that makes this show a definite crowd-pleaser. Their routines involve both some precision timing and the maintaining of impeccable hand-eye coordination not only with themselves but with the other, as objects are often passed back and forth while in mid-routine.

Give Up review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Arts House

Guillym Davenport has given up. His depression has finally got the better of him so he's spending the night alone, in his bedroom, eating pizza and drinking booze - with us. The show isn't ready, and he's not prepared, but come on in anyway... In Give Up, Presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, Davenport looks at the issues of mental health and what happens when it all gets too much.

Davenport is charming, funny and very likeable on stage and there is some intelligent discussion generated around mental health. Unfortunately his attempts at pairing this with the deconstruction of theatre do not work well, creating a haphazard show that doesn’t quite seem to know where it’s headed.

The Woman In Black preview

I have been a huge fan of Susan Hills' novella The Woman In Black since I saw its adaptation for the West End for the first time in 2008. The production is the second longest running in London, currently in its 27th. This atmospheric ghost story is cleverly told and the build up of the horror and the suspense is palpable from beginning to end, which terrorises the audience.

Earlier this year, independent theatre company, RedFox 3 staged this production in Healesville and Warburton, and next month will be giving Melbourne the opportunity to experience the horrors of  The Woman In Black for themselves, during a limited season at the Alex Theatre in St Kilda.