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Published: Wednesday, 04 September 2019 08:33
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Written by Nita Teoh
American director and writer Lulu Wang’s latest movie The Farewell follows the troubles and tensions of a widespread Chinese family who reunites to visit their dying grandmother whilst concealing the fact that she has been diagnosed with cancer and does not have long to live.
The family visit the grandmother on the pretext of going to China to attend the wedding of a grandson and his Japanese wife to be.
The main character Billi is a young New York woman and budding writer, who has fond memories of her grandmother from when she was a young child growing up in China, before her parents migrated to America.
As well as being funny and heartfelt, the drama comedy raises some interesting and poignant issues about what it means to be family, with Billi being caught in the middle of traditional Chinese culture and the Western values she has developed while living in the USA.
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Published: Sunday, 18 August 2019 08:19
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Written by Lee-Ann Khoh
The Apparatus grabs your attention as soon as you walk into the theatre. Mostly because Tim Green is munching on snacks behind a mixing desk in the corner of the stage, with his face painted white, wearing nothing but his underwear. Humphrey Bower soon joins him, similarly dressed, but unlike Green, he acquires more costumes as the show progresses. (As a word of warning, the show in question does get pretty graphic, but not because of the semi-nudity.)
The Apparatus has been adapted from three Franz Kafka stories: Before the Law, The Burrow, and In the Penal Colony. In Part One of the play, a man spends his life trying to gain access to a door guarded by a gatekeeper. In Part Two, Bower seamlessly transitions into the role of an animal, paranoid about defending the burrow he has created. Finally, in Part Three, Bower transforms again, this time into a camo-wearing, broad-accented Australian man, channelling certain politicians as he showcases a new torture device.
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