MIDDLE RAGED, A MUSICAL MELTDOWN

 

Written by Queenie van de Zandt and Tiffany Noack

Directed by Priscilla Jackman

Produced by Women with Pockets and Andrew Kay & Associates

The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre to 11 July

 

Reviewed by Len Power 9 July 2026

 

Part comedy, part concert and part midlife awakening, Middle Raged celebrates the good and the bad aspects of that time when women hit midlife. It’s raw and doesn’t pull any punches but it’s also fiercely funny as four women share personal experiences during an ultimate night out together.

Created from hundreds of comments collected from women across Australia about this important time in their lives, the show shines a wide spotlight on the riotous chaos of aging, raging and changing. The clever, witty script is by Queenie van de Zandt and Tiffany Noack. While there’s plenty of rage, there’s also a surprising and feel-good optimism in the show.

Queenie van de Zandt, Valerie Bader, Zuleika Khan and Carita Farrer Spencer

The cast of four - Valerie Bader, Carita Farrer Spencer, Zuleika Khan and Queenie van de Zandt – give highly polished and individually appealing performances that range from high comedy to intense drama.

All are fine singers, too, performing relevant songs by Missy Higgins, Gillian Cosgriff, Laura Murphy, Tim Minchin, Sia and P!nk. They are supported by an excellent onstage band comprising Jillian O’Dowd on drums, Sandy Klose on bass and Robyn Womersley on keyboard.

Queenie van de Zandt and the cast

There is an impressive and colourful production design by Isabel Hudson and a clever use of multimedia designed with flair by Mark Bolotin. The striking lighting design by Trudy Dalgleish adds a fine atmosphere to the show.

This fast-paced production, performed without interval, works very well. Director, Priscilla Jackman, has ensured that all the elements of this highly imaginative show come together, giving the audience an explosive entertainment.

For proof that middle age and menopause can still be hugely entertaining, look no further than this delightful show.

 

Photos by Philip Erbacher

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.

 

Middle Raged - A Musical Meltdown

 

Middle Raged – A Musical Meldown by Queenie van de Zandt and Tiffany Noack
Canbera Theatre Centre – The Playhouse.  July 9, 10 7pm; July 11, 3pm 2026

Reviewed by Frank McKone, July 9

The Cast
Queenie van de Zandt; Valerie Bader 
Carita Farrer Spencer; Zuleika Khan

The Creatives
Co-Writers & Producers: Queenie van de Zandt and Tiffany Noack
Director: Priscilla Jackman
Musical Director: Robyn Womersley
Choreographer: Sally Dashwood
Set & Costume Designer: Isabel Hudson
Additional material and musical numbers: Laura Murphy

With an all-female live band, the performance weaves together skits, poetry, monologues, and iconic songs from artists like Missy Higgins, Sia, P!nk, and Tim Minchin.

This is a terrifically well written, well played and well sung highly amusing presentation, derived from a large number of interviews with women experiencing menopause.

In addition to being thoroughly engaging and entertaining, it is seriously educational, not only for young women to learn what to expect, usually in their fifties, but to encourage those in the throes of hot flushes, emotional turmoil, and often depression to know that there is a life for them, often of greater freedom from conventional strictures, in their later lives: demonstrated by these very women on stage.  

Grandmothers are very often essential for holding families together.

Taking a comic approach, with claps and cheers at many of the songs and dance routines, enhances the depth and sense of importance of the issues women face, not only from the changes in bodily functions, but even more from the failure of men to treat women with respect and proper recognition of what women go through – and what they do for everybody else.

Definitely not to be missed – by women and girls, and as much by men and boys.  

I am biassed on this last point, having had to take female hormone to reduce the chance of my prostate cancer growing back again.  For women, menopause means an imbalance of and a degree of loss of the female hormone against the male hormone, testosterone.  

In men, the testosterone is the energy source for growing prostate cancer.  Female hormone treatment – a monthly injection – causes me to experience the same ‘hot flushes’ that menopausal women experience; and I may need to continue – on a three monthly injection basis – for the rest of my life.

However, as Middle Raged concludes, life goes on – so I am still writing reviews at my ripe old age of 85.  

And after tonight I understand so much more from these four women: making me – I mean this very seriously – a more respectful man.

Middle Raged – A Musical Meltdown is creative, real-life theatre at it best.

 

 

 

 

GIA OPHELIA

 

Gia Ophelia by Grace Wilson.

Directed and produced by Jo Bradley. Performer Annie Stafford. Sound Design and Composer: Otto Zagala. Lighting Design: Holly Nesbitt. Costume Design: Geita Goarin. Set Design Jo Bradley. Production Stage Manager: Rhiley Winnett. Assistant Producer: Laila Chesterman. JB Theatre Company. Associate Producers: Canberra Youth Theatre. Photographer Philip Erbacher. Courtyard Theatre. Canberra Theatre Centre. July 8-11 2026. Bookings: Canberra Ticketing on 6275 2700

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Annie Stafford is Gia in Gia Ophelia

Grace Wilson’s Gia Ophelia is an actor’s confessional, revealing the most intimate, soul-searching aspirations of one actor’s life and passion.  It is 13 years since Gia played Ophelia in a school production. Nobody came, and now at 29 she is longing to play the part and reveal to audiences Shakespeare’s true intent in the creation of this tragic heroine.  Playwright Wilson paints a funny, raw and intensely moving portrait of a woman, obsessed by the role of Ophelia and torn between the dream of a career in theatre and the expectations to be a wife and mother forced on her by her partner Dan’s family and Dan himself.  Gia’s chance to escape the life of a waitress comes with the opportunity to take part in a training residency, culminating in a performance of Hamlet. It is the perfect opportunity to finally play the role she has longed for.

Gia Ophelia is a triumph for the writer, director and performer of JB Theatre Company. Wilson imbues the text with the authentic awareness of someone who has experienced the highs and lows of seeking to make a career in the industry. It is real, depicting a woman torn between hope and despair. Comedy and tragedy, those two faces of drama, interconnect in a one woman play that has the audience laughing at the absurd drama exercises at the training residency and then feeling the aching pain of rejection when Gia’s world collapses around her. Wilson’s writing reflects the rewards that come with a close relationship between writer and director. Director and former member of Canberra Youth Theatre, Jo Bradley intuitively captures Gia’s turmoil, carefully orchestrating performer Annie Stafford’s physical and emotional response to her changing circumstance. Following on from a highly successful and sold-out season at the 2025 Sydney Fringe Festival the production is tightly directed by Bradley, while eliciting a fresh spontaneity from Stafford’s performance in the Courtyard Studio of the Canberra Theatre Centre.

As Gia, Stafford gives a remarkable performance traversing the difficult emotional terrain of a woman obsessed, buoyed by hoped, dashed by disillusion, tormented by choice, possessed of a secret that threatens to destroy her stability and burdened with the expectations that can’t be met and the sacrifice and loss that that entails. Only the final scene of the 80-minute monologue appears drawn out as the play draws to a heart wrenching conclusion, with Gia cradling a rolled-up blanket in her arms as the child she knows she can never have. Wilson leaves us with no happy ending. We can only be left, like Gia, to hope that she will rise from the mattress in the basement to let the Ophelia inside her free.

What we are witnessing in JB Theatre Company’s Gia Ophelia is the emergence of three promising talents that give hope for the future of theatre in the country. If Gia Ophelia is any indication we can look forward to more outstanding work by writer Grace Wilson, director/producer Jo Bradley and actor Annie Stafford. Remember these names and the company. They have so much more to offer Australian theatre.

 

 

THE STRANGEWAYS CABARET - Merrigong Theatre Company - The B.

 

The cast of the Strangways Cabaret.

 

Director: Anne-Louise Rentell – Musical Director: Daryl Wallis

Performed by: Phillip Prentiss – Ethan Arnold – Malcolm Allison – Jordan Bowater – Ethan Green – Rachel Head – Phillip Prentice – Christian Tagliaferro – Ricky Gamble – James Carey. Guest Artists: Lulu Venom – Nixi Cola – Canberra Burlesque Academy.

Musicians: Daryl Wallis - Keys. Rob Laurie - Drums and percussion.

The B, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, July 4^th, 2026. Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

Members of The Strangeway Cabaret

 

The Strangeways Cabaret has been an annual event in the Merrigong Theatre Company’s calendar since 2021. These were the company’s first performances in Queanbeyan as part of a short tour which commenced in Wollongong and also includes Bathurst.

The Strangeways Ensemble is a company of neuro-diverse actors and musicians from Wollongong, who through the Strangeways Cabarets, which through self-written songs, monologues and sketches, explores universal themes from the unique perspectives of the participants.  

The Strangeways Ensemble is Wollongong’s only professional theatre company.

In this edition, those themes focussed mainly on love. Self-love as well as romantic love, while exploring ways of being accepted as yourself.

Supported by excellent lighting and sound and directed by Anne-Louise Rentell, with the company assuming purposely bizarre characterisations, costumed individually as fantastical players, in a setting reminiscent of an underground Parisian cabaret, the performance took the form of a series of unconnected items.

Unfortunately, there were no printed programs, or other material, available to identify the players or the titles of each item, which may have assisted the audience to appreciate the intent of those items. As it was, the audience was left to make what it could of original songs for which the lyrics were not always distinct.

This was a pity because there was no doubting the passion behind the messages those songs and monologues were intended to communicate.

But missed messaging aside, the performance still left lingering memories of the elderly lady, a vision in head-to-toe pink, who carried a small hand-puppet puppy and performed counter-melody lyrics about loneliness to the tune of the Unchained Melody.  

And the enthusiastic dancer, snappily costumed in a black dinner suit topped off with white hat and shoes, who after demonstrating his prowess with Fred Astaire poses and Michael Jackson moonwalks drew gasps when he stripped away his suit to complete his act in white singlet and gold underpants.

And not forgetting the very tall gentleman dressed in a bear-suit and red-ruff collar who conjured up memories of baggy-pants comedians of Tivoli vaudeville days as he traded gags with the pink lady and gold-pants dancer; or the excellent band augmented by cast members who doubled on various instruments, and the clever drummer who contributed creepy sound-effects for the monologues, The Strangeways Cabaret certainly offered a unique theatrical experience.

 

The Strangeways Cabaret Band

 

 

                                     Photos provided by Merrigong Theatre Company

  

 

Ensemble Theatre: The Dapto Chaser & The Roommate

 

The Dapto Chaser by Mary Rachel Brown (Australia) June 29 – July 25 2026
Directed by Anna Houston

The Roommate by Jen Silverman (USA) June 19 – July 25 2026
Directed by Lee Lewis

Ensemble Theatre, Sydney.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
July 4th

What a tremendous Saturday afternoon at the Ensemble!  The Dapto Chaser at 1:30pm; The Roommate at 4:30pm.  And Kirribilli for dinner.  Was the 300 kms drive each way worth it?  More than, so say I!

As a one-time actor myself (never anywhere near any of these performers), I found one scene in each play especially exhilarating to watch.  

I have acted dead, but never as dead as Peter Carroll.  You have to breathe shallow and move not a muscle – even the little finger stretched out to the beer can.  For ten minutes, at least.  Carroll is a master artist, aged 82 and not missing a beat on stage, as the father betting his family’s life away on Dapto’s famous dog racing circuit.

Lucy Bell is as well-known, playing Sharon – letting out a room in quiet Iowa to what turns out to be a nefarious lodger from the Bronx.  Her near final scene, in flimsy sexy black, dancing the death of her proper regular lifestyle, is absolutely stunning to watch – the funniest sequence I’ve seen in a long-time.  I’ve been laughed at on stage, but.....

Mia Farrow played this role on Broadway, the New York Times writing “Crackles with energy”, which is exactly the right description for Lucy Bell at the Ensemble.

Each play definitely belongs to its national culture.  

The Dapto Chaser

I bet Pauline Hanson will want us all to behave, and especially speak, like Mary Rachel Brown’s traditional (loud and white) Australians, gambling all away for the dream of ripping off the owner of the dog-racing business, who is ripping off the gamblers at every turn.
That’s Australia, for you.

And in the end, as the cost of the father’s funeral is more than the two sons can afford, as they continue their father’s obsession, the circuit owner buys their only greyhound, Boy Named Susan, which has proved to be the fastest dog – not for the promised $14,000, but only $10,000: just enough for the funeral.

In her writer’s note, Mary Rachel Brown hopes “this work also contributes to the discourse on generational poverty and the pervasiveness of gambling in our culture.”  This, in the end, is the true purpose of presenting the play, showing how the fractious relationships between father, elder and younger sons, now motherless in a failed marrage, are created by the obsession with gambling.

The play was written from the author’s documentary research in the real Dapto, on the coast south of Sydney, in 2011 – before the current spread of social media on the internet, and the misuse of the online platforms to make the business of betting the new form of entertainment among young people – making fortunes for the platform owners, and which at least should be illegal to be advertised.

The Roommate

AI sums up the situation quite simply:
Sharon: A recently divorced, anxious empty-nester in her 50s. She is a somewhat sheltered housewife living in Iowa City who takes in a roommate to help pay the bills.
Robyn: A 50-something, former entrepreneur and scam artist from the Bronx. She is a pot-smoking, vegan lesbian who relocates to Iowa looking for a fresh start and a place to hide her secrets. 

This is America, talking in the correct accents – even down to Sharon really being from Illinois.  As an outsider, I found it fascinating to see how Belinda Bromilow created a personality which matched her actually suburban New York accent, rather than the Bronx where she had illegally made her money.  That suited her decision to leave for country, but not too country, Iowa, when she knew she had gone as far as she could in the scam business – which then fascinates Sharon.

Lucy Bell has the mannerisms down to every instant switch of direction, searching for how to be appreciated, in a recognisable American style.  But once again, as in the Australian play, the author is seeking social change.  Jen Silverman says:

“Though the play is often discussed as a comedy, for me, it has its roots in that heart-deep loneliness, and in the hunger unleashed by finally feeling communion with someone else.

“It’s rare to see exciting, provocative, complicated, morally ambiguous portraits of older women onstage or on screen. There’s something so sanitized about the images we receive of women who are, say, over thirty-five – and that image doesn’t actually mesh with the 50 and 60 and 70 year old women I know, who are hilarious and complex and fascinating. I wanted to write a play that gave two female characters the same due that older male characters receive much more often, and I’ve loved seeing how theatres across the world have risen with enthusiasm to this challenge, and the incredible actors who have stepped forward to hold these characters. I’m grateful to Ensemble Theatre for giving this story a home.”

Loneliness, and how to survive financially, is the crucial social issue here.  I’m grateful to Ensemble for an afternoon of great humour and warmth of concern for better understanding – and I look forward to political action for a better future.

The Dapto Chaser:

Playwright: Mary Rachel Brown; Director: Anna Houston
Cast:
Peter Carroll as Errol Sinclair: The stubborn, ailing, and domineering patriarch who is a former dog-racing stalwart.
Justin Rosniak as Cess Sinclair: Errol’s eldest son, an active dog-racing trainer who deals with financial desperation and emotional volatility.
André de Vanny as Jimmy Sinclair: Errol’s younger, more timid son who operates the electric hare at the track and longs to escape the family business.
Marco Chiappi as Arnold Denny (or Denny): Errol’s wealthy rival and a smooth, oily greyhound owner who enjoys manipulating the struggling Sinclairs.
Set & Costume Designer: Simone Romaniuk
Lighting Designer: Matt Cox; Composer and Sound Designer: Madeleine Picard
Video Designer: Aron Murray; Fight Director: Scott Witt
Stage Manager: Christopher Starnawski
Assistant Stagre Manage: Bella Wellstead; Costume Supervisor: Lily Mateljan

The Roommate:

Playwright: Jen Silverman; Director: Lee Lewis
Assistant Director: Jules Billington
Cast:
Lucy Bell as Sharon; Belinda Bromilow as Robyn
Set & Costume Designer: Simone Romaniuk
Lighting Designer: Matt Cox; Composer & Sound Designer: Madeleine Picard
Dialect Coach: Linda Nicholls-Gidley; Voice of Sharon's Son: Jeremy Waters
Stage Manager: Jen Jackson: Assistant Stage Manager: Maddison Craven
Costume Supervisor: Lily Mateljan

 

 

 

 

COCK by Mike Bartlett

 

Cock by Mike Bartlett.

Directed by Zachary  Bridgman. Assistant director Anna Hemming. Produced by Chris Baldock. Lighting design Rhiley Winnett and Emma Hemming. Set concept, design and realization Chris Baldock. Stage Manager and lighting and sound Anna Hemming. Costumes Cast. Props Chris Baldock and Cast. Intimacy Coordination Steph Evans. Publicity and Photography Chris Baldock with Zac Bridgman. Mockingbird Studio Theatre. A Mockingbird Too Production. Belconnen Arts Centre. July 1-4 2026.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

Mockingbird Theatre Company’s Artistic Director, Chris Baldock, has introduced Mockingbird Too as a subsidiary arm of his main programme. He has resisted inviting critics, so I decided to invite myself to see Mike Bartlett’s Olivier Award winning play Cock, directed by Zachary Bridgman and featuring Adelaide Hayes as W, James Phillips as John, Eli Narev as M and Paul G. Hutchison as F. There is nothing second tier about Bridgman’s production or the cast’s performances. They are assisted by playwright Mike Bartlett’s writing, funny and uncomfortable, entertaining and confronting, barbed and brutal, honest and revealing, stripping back the façade to expose the raw rash of insecurity and uncertainty about love, sexuality and identity. For ninety minutes Bartlett catapults us through the turbulent relationship of John ( Phillips) and his lover M (Narev), the crisis in identity, allegiance and fidelity when James meets and has sex with W ( Hayes). It all comes to a head when Eli invites W to dinner and asks his father F (Hutchison) to join them. Assailed on all sides, the confused and impotent John is finally compelled to make a decision and we are left wondering whether John has chosen in concert with his true feelings and sense of self. Or is he left still with the most bewildering conundrum of them all, “Who am I?”

Eli Narev as M. James Phillips as John. Adelaide Hayes as W

 

Director Bridgman has set the play in a boxing ring, a place where the uppercut of Bartlett’s language, the left hook jab of verbal assault and the bob and weave of ducking punches can ultimately lead to a blow by blow collapse to the canvas. We sit as spectators to the fight, witnesses to the complicated gay love of John and M, the sexual awakening of heterosexual love with W and the biased refereeing of F.  When the bell sounds the final bout the call leaves John a bruised and battered victim of the fight, up against the ropes with no escape in a contest that has no winner and three losers. Bartlett’s Cock pulls no punches when it comes to boxing below the belt to win the fight and gain the trophy. If only John knew which or who was the trophy.

Bridgman’s stylized direction within the ropes makes the most of the sparring, avoiding the realism of props and settings apart from four stools in the combatants’ corners and a water bottle for each boxer. Each round concludes with the sounding of the bell until John is lef t isolated and alone in his confusion. Bartlett’s language needs no graphic action to arouse the emotions. Bridgman directs with the evocative power of suggestiveness, allowing us to imagine, to judge or to envision. Cock is an actor’s playground and Bridgman’s cast turn in first grade performances.

As the only named character in the play, Phillips turns in a terrific performance, a tortuous struggle to discover his true self and come to terms with his confused bisexuality. His character is the cog in a chain of conflicting demands and emotions, and Phillips turns in a first-rate performance as Bartlett’s psychological punching bag. As John’s gay lover, Narev is thoroughly convincing, intensely faithful and dependent on John’s love for his own sense of self. Narev lends the character a searing vulnerability and a desperate need for love from the bewildered John. Hayes’ W is the Siren who distorts John’s reality in his mind. Her motive is simple when after a broken relationship, she tells John “I think you’re the one”. Every character has something to lose in this triangular combat with one’s own needs and desires. Bartlett’s tone shifts with the appearance in the final round of M’s father, F. Hutchison gives a firmly blinkered performance of a father who has accepted his son’s sexuality and refuses to have th at acceptance threatened by W’s intervention in John’s allegiance to the seven year relationship with M. The text becomes more dogmatic and didactic, espousing cliché. The volatility in the earlier rounds becomes more laboured during the dinner scene as the characters struggle to come to terms with their perspective. It is a struggle that leads to a resolution that offers no solution.

Adelaide Hayes as W. Paul G. Hutchison as F in Cock 

 

Bridgman’s production offers a fascinating insight into a vulnerability that is forever lurking until it is compelled to leap into the ring and punch its way to the final sound of the bell, whatever that may prove to be. Mockingbird Too’s Cock will have you glued to your seats in anticipation of the outcome. It only runs until the 12^th. If you miss it, and even if you don’t, see Bartlett’s companion piece Bull presented by Mockingbird Too from July 15^th. If Cock is anything to go by this too will be a companion piece not to be missed.

 

 

 

CALIGULA

Written by Albert Camus

Directed by Isaiah Prichard

Performative Theatre production

Act Hub Theatre, Kingston to 4 July

 

Reviewed by Len Power 2 July 2026

 

The human need to find meaning in a world that stays strangely silent and unhelpful is an absurd notion. Camus’ play uses the terror reign of the Roman emperor, Caligula, to show what crazy lengths a powerful man will go to when he is unable to find the answers to give reason to his life. When Caligula declares that he wants the moon, for the simple reason that he doesn’t have it yet, we’re in an uneasy place.

Director, Isaiah Prichard presented a clear vision with his production of this literate play. He is helped with a cleverly designed set by Kathleen Kershaw in which a cracked bust of Caligula loomed over the action and there were often startling but effective costume designs by Alex Ellwood.

Mischa Rippon (Caligula)

The central role of Caligula is given an outstanding performance by Mischa Rippon. His commanding presence was balanced with a fine sense of the madness of the character. He displayed an especially strong sense of understanding of the man in his finely tuned vocal delivery, giving Caligula a humanity beneath the insanity.

Natasha Lyall (Caesonia) and Mischa Rippon (Caligula)

There were strong performances, too, from Natasha Lyall as Caesonia, Amy Gottschalk as Cherea, Alex Elwood as Scipio, Dan Fonn Prichard as Helicon and Paris Scharke as Mereia. Some other performances were a bit uneven but overall, the cast did a fine job bringing Camus’ characters to life.

This was a long play but, in this fine production, it was always compelling. Despite dealing with madness and absurdity, the director, Isaiah Prichard, maintained control throughout.

This production of Albert Camus’ rarely performed absurdist play, ‘Caligula’, by the youthful new Performative Theatre proved to be an exciting and memorable launching pad for the company.

 

 

Photos by Jack Dent

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.