Our latest Sydney theatre reviews

Whether arriving via a luxurious water taxi or taking a leisurely stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens, the journey to Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour is as picturesque as the setting itself. Each year, a vibrant theatrical hub emerges, complete with a five-storey pop-up bar and dining venue with a variety of offerings, ranging from cheerful pizzas, hotdogs and pies to decadent three-course feasts. This annual event embodies the very essence of spectacle, and this year's performance of West Side Story (which makes an anticipated return to Mrs Macquries Chair after its 2019 debut) wows us while compelling us to wrestle with the stark relevance of its themes, both to Australia’s own history and the turf wars at play globally. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical masterpiece West Side Story debuted on Broadway in 1957 and most recently got the Hollywood treatment by Steven Speilberg, to seven Oscar nominations. It’s a modern take on Shakepeare’s well-known tale of star crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, set in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, during the 1950s. The Jets, a gang of All-American boys, are in a turf war with the Sharks, the new Puerto Rican immigrants on the block. When Maria (Nina Korbe) – the sister of the Sharks’ leader, Bernardo (Manuel Stark Santos) – and Tony (Billy Bourchier), a former Jet, lock eyes at the local dance, the rivalries escalate. You might assume that the open-air ambiance would diminish the impact of the ove

This is it, we have found the yassification of Shakespeare. Fuelled by a playlist of certified pop hits, this jukebox romp billed as “the greatest love story ever remixed” poses a simple but provocative question: What if, instead of joining Romeo in eternal slumber, Juliet decided to live? A contagiously joyous musical spectacular, & Juliet has finally landed at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre after being met with critical acclaim on Broadway and the West End, not to mention the rapturously received Australian debut in Melbourne.  Filled with sing-a-long-able chart-topping bangers made famous by the likes of Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry and more from the songbook of Grammy-winning Swedish songwriter/producer Max Martin, the Aussie cast is overflowing with talent in this feel-good, flashy production. & Juliet is Shakespeare remixed for the girls, the gays and the theys... [but does it] really cut it as the feminist reclamation that we are promised? Will you be entertained? Absolutely. Does & Juliet set a new standard for jukebox musicals? Yes. Will you see one of the most diverse and charismatic casts of triple-threats ever assembled on an Australian stage? Heck yeah. Does the story deliver on the feminist retribution we are promised? Not quite. “What if Juliet didn’t kill herself?” Anne Hathaway (played by the enthralling Amy Lehpamer) posits to her husband, William Shakespeare (the ever-charming Rob Mills). “She’s only ever had one boyfriend, and frankly, the endi

What would you do if you were struggling to afford to pay your rent, gas, and electricity bills, only to discover that you’ve been priced out of paying for basic groceries too? When the quick-witted Antonia (the prolific actor Mandy McElhinney – who, yes, is also “Rhonda” from those insurance ads) and her fellow weary housewives discover that prices at the local supermarket have doubled overnight, their shopping run erupts into a revolt. The women begin to loot – or, as Antonia would describe it, “liberate” – food off the shelves. When the excitement is over, Antonia finds herself back home with a random assortment of fruits and vegetables, dog food (she doesn’t own a dog), canary pellets (she doesn’t own a canary) and rabbit heads. She enlists the help of her neighbour Margherita (Emma Harvie) to hide the stolen goods from her moralist husband Giovanni (Glenn Hazeldine), a staunch unionist who’s a stickler for rules and due process. The supermarket riot sets a ripple effect of absurdity in motion, ranging from a briny phantom pregnancy with added  “womb olives”, to an unconscious cop with a flatulence problem – and that’s just the highlights.  ...simultaneously leaves you wheezing from laughter and slightly deaf from the roars of others No Pay? No Way! is two hours and twenty minutes of comedic gold. Marieke Hardy’s laugh-out-loud political satire initially premiered with Sydney Theatre Company in February 2020, before it was plagued by lockdowns. But with the way that the

Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived… Holy Six! Australia can’t get enough of Six the Musical. The pop-powered global phenomenon has already had multiple record-breaking seasons across the country. And now, due to popular demand, the disgraced wives of King Henry VIII are warming up their voices for another lap Down Under. The tour is kicking off at Melbourne’s Comedy Theatre from August 2024, before hitting the Sydney stage at the Theatre Royal from October 2024, and bringing it home at QPAC’s Playhouse in Brisbane from January 2025.  Have you had enough of modern royal gossip? Hanging your head in shame over those cracks about Princess Kate secretly getting a BBL? Distract yourself with this modern twist on British Tudor history, it’s packed with pop bangers so catchy that they’ll flush any other thoughts out of your head. As our critic described it in their four-star review: “What if the Spice Girls did a concept album about King Henry VIII’s wives, and Baz Luhrmann directed the concert video?”  That, in a nutshell, is the vibe. More like an 80-minute concert than a traditional musical, Six has become a cultural phenomenon since its premiere in 2017, redefining the boundaries of musical theatre and engaging audiences of all ages. Every year, it is seen by over 3.5 million people worldwide.  The premise is sort of hilarious: all six women who married old mate Henry are forming a pop band, and they’re battling it out to determine who will be crowned the lea

For many of us, our first introduction to The Rocky Horror Show involved a beaten up VHS tape and an exhilarating brew of conflicting feelings about Tim Curry’s iconic fishnet-stocking-clad role as Frank-N-Furter – the cross-dressing mad scientist alien from Transsexual, Transylvania. Beyond its immortalisation in the cult classic 1975 film, this rollicking rock’n’roll musical has been continuously on a stage somewhere in the world ever since it premiered to a small London audience in 1973 – and while today’s slick mainstage productions are a far cry from its grungy roots, there’s still no denying the appeal of doing ‘The Time Warp’ again. After touring around the country, Australia’s 50th anniversary production of Rocky Horror has taken a jump to the left (and a step to the right) to land back at Sydney’s Theatre Royal, about a year after it premiered at the same venue in the same month as Sydney WorldPride, with a couple of notable cast changes this time. It appears that the time on the road has done this company a world of good; the cast take to the stage with a more relaxed and playful energy as they tackle this risqué, silly, borderline-pantomime musical.  Former Australian of the Year and Paralympian Dylan Alcott is a delight to witness in his stage acting debut as The Narrator. With good humour, an ability to roll with the punches, and an injection of signature charm, Alcott nails the difficult-to-pin-down prerequisites to fill this role. The Narrator must be someone a

Few musical references are as iconic as those from Grease. A simple "rama lama lama" or "a wop ba-ba lu-bop a wop bam boom!" may invoke joyful nostalgia, transporting you back to the first time you witnessed John Travolta's gyrating hips or “our” Olivia Newton-John's sweet Sandy smile. For me, it takes me back to my own high school musical experience. With my Pink Lady jacket and Pink Lady sunglasses, the Grease stage is where I first forged my life-long love affair with musical theatre and the passionate community that came with it. That is what musicals are forged on: passion – and this production of Grease: the Musical at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre has an infectious amount of it. Before the 1978 film adaptation cemented Grease’s place in the global pop culture consciousness, this show set in the working-class youth subculture of 1950s Chicago was first staged in 1971. Like any rebellious teen tale, Grease tapped into the angst of young people of the time; it had a '50s style and a '70s attitude. Everyone wanted to be as cool as Kenickie (played here with delectable zeal by Keanu Gonzalez, who has also appeared in Hamilton and West Side Story), as bold as Rizzo (the eye-catching triple threat Mackenzie Dunn, as seen in Hairspray), or as sweet as the nervous Doody (Tom Davis). There were definitely elements of my high school production that built my confidence, brought me out of my shell, and changed my perspective – but the plot wasn't one of them. The musical numbers were jo