State Theatre Company of South Australia/Paper Mouth Theatre Company. 11 Jul 2026
Mary Angley’s vision for Paper Mouth Theatre Company’s take on Chekov’s Uncle Vanya is very much in the spirit animating English playwright Howard Barker’s take on the Russian classic; rip it apart, find something new in it, deliver in a fashion blowing audience’s minds. Brink Productions achieved that in 1997.
Angley’s vision for her production is a ferocious deep dive into things so utterly modern day about the circumstances hapless Vanya and his household endure and their need for comfort. Allied to the idea theatre should provide that comfort too. With, as Angley declares in her Director’s Note, gimmicks. Those videos appearing on the upstage wall. ASMR is in fact Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, something to soothe, calm.
The wall is in fact a beautiful, shimmering forest created by Fraz The Wizard. Then there’s warm, gentle piano by Dan Thorpe, who plays Telegin. Bianka Kennedy’s set is glorious in its wide, sparse rustic beauty.
The beautiful, gracious, classical style performances segue to moments in which the play’s length is criticised. In fact, Act 2 is wholly excised. This is explained by Angley who plays The Professor. Angley muses on what links the world of Vanya and our time. Muses even why she, the Director, should be in the play. Act 2 gets a quick power point plot summation before we belt into Act 3. Angley Act 2 is a lot of fun actually.
Extra fun is added thanks to a set of six actors as a mini audience sitting on the stage. They’re offered the chance to cut monologues considered too long. This play’s not for keeping if it doesn’t deliver the feels. So, actors swap roles. They love doing the acting they say.
Not content with that, a phrase of serious emotional dialogue suddenly becomes a whip fast rap and dance number choreographed by Felicity Boyd. The great battle between Vanya and the Professor is not what you expected to see.
All this short form content stuff layered over the 1887 text is indeed, so much fun. Yet the innate intent and spirit of Chekov’s text remains completely intact—albeit with a few dents here and there.
A sensational cast delivers the most well formed, beautiful characterisations alongside some hair-raising tumbles and wicked double play; Yoz Mensch,, Lucy Haas, Arran Beattie, Poppy Mee, and Ellen Graham.
Here’s quite an achievement. Take a melancholic Russian classic, inject a solid dose of 21st Century social media/tech content into it. Result, a funny sadness. Weird sense of changing something up, but did it work for you? A question to bug you for days after.
David O’Brien
When: 9 to 18 Jul
Where: AC Arts Main Theatre
Bookings: statetheatrecompany.com.au
Marie Clark Musical Theatre. The Arts Theatre. 26 Jun 2026
From the evergreen stage show Oliver! written originally by Lionel Bart (based on the Victorian Britain novel by Charles Dickens about a poorhouse orphan) comes a classic performance. It’s not often that audiences are asked not to sing, but such was the request for this production (“you can sing in the car on the way home!”).
And so, to the opening number, Food Glorious Food, and the singing expectations are immediately exceeded. Oliver (played by Patrick Green) established his credentials from the opening scene with that most famous of theatrical lines ‘please sir, can I have some more?’ In this season of Oliver!, it should be noted there are two youth casts who rotate through the performance schedule which comprises matinee and evening shows over the weekend. Our performance starred the Dickens Youth Cast, and very fine they were too. I can only imagine the other, the Bart Youth Cast show equal aplomb. Alix Carter as the Artful Dodger was sassy and extremely capable, turning in a dynamic performance.
Oliver teams up with a gang of young pickpockets who all steal for the slyly brilliant Fagin (great casting and performance from Adam Goodburn) who is probably consistently best-on-stage. By the time that one of the show’s highlight pieces comes about–Consider Yourself–the cast, directed by Lucy Trewin and Eloise Morriss, are in fine voice, and with the entire cast on stage the foundations of the Arts Theatre (itself dating back to the 1960s) were given a rocking.
Mention must be made of the young cast of pickpockets (Evie Dew, Jacqueline Siow, Jonathon Siow, Leo Dew, Nola Owen-Blazewicz, Owen Wu, Penelope Natt and Sassika Bentley), Musical Director Jaxon Joy, and the outstanding Sarah Hamilton as Nancy. Her Nancy was bold and brassy, sensitive and kind to the kids, and Hamilton worked these variations in character with great skill. As a singer she was the star of the show, powerful and clearly in control of her environment.
So, were there problems? Really, only one. Some of the acting was not to the standard set by the rest of the production. For music theatre one supposes this can be explained away, but when it is very much below all else it is quite noticeable.
Some imaginative lighting from Michael Benjamin lifted the production beyond the standard, exemplified by the use of a projection screen for Bill Sykes’ death. And how wonderful to have the accompaniment of Jaxon Joy’s 15-piece orchestra!
This is a considered and well realised production, and the quality of the voices is just outstanding. The beautiful haunting harmonies of Who Will Buy should remain with audiences for some time. Acknowledging the subject matter, this is a cracking production: well-rounded performances, deft choreography (also from Morriss, who paid particular attention to cast stage business while principals were front and centre) and superb musicianship.
This version of Oliver! really was excellent, a performance which brings to mind a couple of much debated points in the theatre scene around Adelaide. Firstly, what is the distinction between amateur and professional theatre, for if it is reckoned to be quality this was a performance to blush many professional outfits. If it is about the status of the cast (they being amateurs) then there is an argument about where the arts funding in this state is going.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 19 to 27 Jun
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Pitchwhite Productions. The Studio, Holden Street Theatres. 25 Jun 2026
This new Australian work by Louise Hopewell is a relevant and provocative think-piece for the very now.
It is about a viable future of AI and automation. It is exciting and worrying.
How long may it be before robots can take the place of carers in nursing homes?
In Only Human, octogenarian Ruth’s care is suddenly “upgraded” by the employment of a personal robot. It is programmed with her needs and functions as a smart slave.
In a time when chronically short-handed nursing homes are largely staffed by underpaid immigrants with hearts of gold but insufficient time to do their best, this question of the automated alternative reigns high. We all face this future. We all are aging. The issue is growing.
We are lucky to have the South Asian workers who, unlike us, have a cultural impetus to care for the aged and infirm.
I’m not just a theatre critic; I am also a Norwood Council Volunteer Aged Care Visitor.
I have just achieved the age of the play’s protagonist.
Double whammy.
I am regularly on the ground in the play’s setting.
In fact, I have just come home from that twilight world, heavy-hearted as usual. The residents are well cared for but their world is bleak and the sweet-natured staff can only do so much.
In Only Human, the non-human takes the weight off. Each patient has their own “Scally”.
They then are not lonely or bored, let alone in soiled Depends.
Ruth’s daughter is a doctor, and she sees the non-human issues as pivotal.
Thus, the play debates a realistic future and it is intense.
Under Hannah Smith’s direction, there is a rich emotional landscape and a gratifying evolution of tension.
She’s graced by an impressive three-hander cast. Sharon Malujilo embodies aging Ruth and plays out her growing dementia with beautifully perceived balance.
Monica Patteson, as daughter Jody, is playing the “us” of offspring forced into committing a parent into care. It is a gruelling experience which she depicts with sensitivity while doing the heavy lifting of the ethical and moral dilemmas of the new order. Meanwhile, there is Isiah Macaspac as a robot. Some audience members at the opening initially seemed to think it is a comic role. Au contraire. This is a serious piece of theatre, and, despite a few calculated moments of humour, the robot absolutely is not a clown. It is a sinister portent of both our dreams and nightmares.
Macaspac plays it with admirable precision.
The play is not perfect. There are moments when its credibility falters.
But, as a taut and terrific production, it is an absolute winner.
Samela Harris
When: 25 to 28 Jun
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com.au
Holden Street Theatres. 31 May 2026
You are invited to, literally, a ringside seat to the most effed up wedding of the year. It all starts with a bit of hair straightening and the squish into the wedding dress as two sisters ready their bride-to-be sibling. The banter is free and easy. By the end of the play, it will be your hair that is standing on end as the vodka and beer bring out the dirty linen.
Director Nick Fagan propels the action with perpetual kinetics. A large number of actors are in constant motion abetted by a central revolve which seems to work when you don’t really need it and doesn’t revolve when it’s essential.
The accent coach is probably a little disappointed by consistency from some players but set design by Nick Fagan, lighting design and complex scene changes are all good stuff. The melodramatics appropriately escalate but hit a shriek level that was too high, too early and went on for too long, stealing the audience's energy for the finale.
Spencer Scholz plays the bridegroom and outsider to this post-industrial Midlands family that is still stuck in the abandoned coal mines. His character is as Polish as a pierogi; he fulfilled my stereotype of a successful East European immigrant. Bravo! Jo St Clair makes a fabulous foil with comic relief. Bravo! Brant Eustice’s demonstration of unrequited love is seriously grievous. Bravo! The action swells to a crescendo the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Bravo to the indefatigable Martha Lott! Generous bravos in a cast of high-quality actors.
You will empathise with strongly developed and portrayed characters who can’t change, who struggle to understand where does the love go, who don’t know whether to hold on or to let go of their myths - for teenagers aching to understand what growing up means. Beth Steel’s play has a smorgasbord of issues, and this cast and production will push more than a few of your buttons.
David Grybowski
When: 26 May to 14 Jun
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.online
Jones Theatre Group with ATG Productions and the Adelaide Festival Centre. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 3 Jun 2026
Everyone knows the story. Everyone loves the frocks. Pretty Woman is a given, based on the movie with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. With Bryan Adams and Jim Valance's music and lyrics and the book by Garry Marshall and J.F. Lawton, it has been touring the country to standing ovations.
It scored another one at its opening in Adelaide.
Jones Theatre Group has picked up the formula for a cheerful stage blockbuster: top quality everything.
One may quibble at the cliché of the lyrics or the predictability of the shtick, but then again, the show is playing to a fresh generation, and everyone deserves a good serve of classic music hall corn. “Buttons”, the porter dancing with the mop, the tearful heroine blowing her nose into the borrowed hankie…
This production is just one great big piece of slick.
The scene changes slot in seamlessly. The chorus lines are drilled to exquisite precision. The costumes, the costumes, the costumes—and the lightning costume changes. The whizzy lighting. The full-bodied band.
And, of course, the cast.
Ben Hall is matinee-idol triple-threat material as Edward Lewis, the ruthless capitalist who picks up the hooker on seamy old Hollywood Boulevard. He has a lovely balance of macho and tenderness in a role that encompasses even a few steamy love scenes onstage with the irrepressible Vivian Ward, played, sung, and danced most aptly by Samantha Jade—albeit in a brunette wig that is too big for her.
Songs are belted out. Energy levels and character deliveries are high from both leads.
And then there’s Tim Omaji.
This powerful Nigerian-born song-and-dance man is one of the most arresting performers to hit the Australian stage in a long time. He is the street’s Happy Man and the hotel’s suave concierge, Mr Thompson. Momentarily, he is even the orchestra conductor. In whatever capacity, he carries the scenes and grows more adorable by the minute.
Support roles are strongly filled, with the big voice of Michelle Brasier heartily simpatico as Vivian’s voluptuous street soulmate, and Douglas Hansell icily alienating as the rapacious business villain. The audience falls in love with Fabian Andres’ cheeky usher. The ensemble is huge and multitasking all over the place, with Rebecca Gulinello and Callum Warrender performing a stellar cameo operatic scene.
This is not great “theatre”. It is a great “show”. Under the Suzanne Jones production banner, it is a shamelessly extravagant crowd-pleaser. And, thus rewarded, the audience left the venue smiling and singing.
A very nice night’s entertainment.
Samela Harris
When: 3 to 30 Jun
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: ticketek.com.au