By Peter Kemp
Burrinja theatre
Opa Bato! – Like at the Lyre
Opa Bato! Is the only Trubacki Orkestar in Australia performing authentic contemporary Balkan brass music from the rich traditions of Serbia, Macedonia and beyond.
The distinctive music of the Balkans is the result of European and Eastern musical traditions meeting and cross-pollinating over many centuries.
Southern Serbia is home to the Trubacki Orkestar, also heard in the wider Balkan region and now the rest of Europe and beyond.
While there are slow and evocative ballads, the music id often fast, frenetic and compelling danceable, with energetic rhythms , soaring melodies and wild Turkish-influenced improvisations.
Season: Friday 6 September at 8pm.
1812 theatre in association with Redfox Theatre Company
Coherence
Australian Premiere – Strictly Limited Season.
A group of friends gather together for a dinner party where relationship tensions and secrets sizzle below the surface.
But when a comet passes close to Earth, it shuts down power supplies and phone connections, plunging the evening into metaphysical chaos.
Season: 5 – 14 September.
Lilydale Athenaeum Theatre
Clue on Stage
The classic board game is brought to life in Clue on Stage. Six guests are invited to a dinner party thrown by an anonymous host.
They are given aliases – Colonel Mustard, Mrs White, Mr Green, Mrs Peacock, Professor Plum and Miss Scarlett.
Though discouraged from revealing personal information, it is soon discovered that all of them have fallen victim to the same blackmailer, their very host of the evening.
Each is presented with a weapon and an option, pay their extortionist double or kill the innocent butler. What follows is a madcap, slapstick evening full of murder, mystery and laughs as they seek to puzzle out the culprit among criminals.
Season: 5 – 13 September.
Victorian Opera Presents
Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Once there was a barber who had it all – a happy life, a beautiful wife.
But it all ended in a savage act of betrayal.
Enter Sweeney Todd, from haunting melodies of Stephen Sondheim to the chilling narrative by Hugh Wheeler, this production explores the transformation of an once-content barber into the infamous ‘demon barber’, a suave and perilous figure with a desire for vengeance.
Sweeney Todd tells the gruesome story of a man living life by the razor’s edge.
This spine-chilling musical thriller will transport audiences to the dark heart of London’s Fleet Street.
Where betrayal, vengeance and dark comedy intertwine.
Season: 14 – 21 September.
Venue: Playhouse Theatre. Arts Centre Melbourne.
