Out of the dark: Malthouse & HUMAN ANIMAL EXCHANGE’s They Saw A Thylacine

In September 1936, the last thylacine (or Tasmanian Tiger) died in Hobart’s Beaumaris Zoo, due to exposure, cold, and lack of care or concern by the superintendant. My grandparents remember seeing that thylacine – a female, called Benjamin – and for years I was fascinated by this bizarre creature with its dog-like gait, dark stripes, straight tail, and eerily large yawn, and more than a little frightened of the grainy black-and-white footage that would be rolled out every time someone mentioned extinction or cloning (this was the early 2000s, when the Australian Museum – headed by Dr Michael Archer – was attempting, however foolishly, to clone the creature). HUMAN ANIMAL EXCHANGE’s They Saw A Thylacine – presented by Malthouse Theatre – is a simple story about two women whose paths crossed with this animal in the 1930s, and despite the simplicity and elegance of its staging, it is powerful and quite moving.

Melita Rowston’s 6 Degrees of Ned Kelly

Accompanied by grainy film footage, comedian Melita Rowston bursts onto the stage wearing the all-too-familiar metal helmet, waving two toy pistols. Her t-shirt reads ‘Such is life.’ Over the next sixty minutes, Rowston not only illustrates, but gently teases and, ultimately, illuminates the poignant and more-often-than-not bizarre world of Kelly-lore in this light-hearted look at the legend of Ned Kelly.

Follow your dreaming: Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Page 8

First staged in 2004, Belvoir’s production of Page 8 – the autobiographical one-person show by David Page – toured the country and internationally for the next five years. Presented here by Bangarra Dance Theatre on its tenth anniversary, as part of Corroboree Sydney, the show is a collection of stories from the Page family’s rich goldseam of experiences, peppered with fragments of home videos, direct audience address, re-enactment, and song-and-dance numbers.

Don’t shoot the messenger: subtlenuance’s Joan, Again

Many years ago, I discovered the story of Joan of Arc in the school library and was struck by the innocence and the passion, the overwhelming sense of conviction (in every sense of the word) that lay at the heart of her story. While I was later to rediscover her in Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan (very much the ‘definitive’ portrait), Paul Gilchrist’s Joan, Again – playing at the Old Fitz Theatre – gives us a new imagining of The Maid of Orléans, a more mercurial, personal and contemporary Joan than we have met before.

As its title suggests, Joan, Again is not the story of the girl who became the legend. Set in 1441, ten years after Joan was burnt at the stake, it is a play about truths and lies, stories and legends, identity, fame and Being. While a historical drama in the loosest sense of the term – that is, being a drama that is based in historical events – it never purports to be history, and should not be mistaken for such; rather, it is a clever, smart and enchanting play that asks us if we are truly who we say we are, if we can believe everything we see or hear, and whether in the end we are all just stories to be told to other people.