Sydney Reviews

Sydney Short+Sweet 2012 delivers once more with its first ever People's Choice Showcase – and showcase it does, presenting the most popular ten minute plays of the season, as voted by the audience. Performed at the friendly Sidetrack Theatre in Marrickville, the show presents audiences the imaginative work and potential of Sydney theatre-makers of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.

A particularly impressive standard of writing is demonstrated in the comedic pieces, with fantastic scripts such as Jacob Boylan and Neel Kolhatkar's The Cause – a hilarious dialogue between an ethnic teen and an Aussie surfer during the Cronulla riots – and Pete Malicki's V.D, dramatically raising the bar for contemporary amateur theatre. But it is the clever juxtaposition between plays of atmosphere and subject matter that makes the show unique; plays like Drown the Black Dog, with the darker tones of alcoholism as a central theme, carefully balance the lighter material. The notion of the short play is constantly redefined and its limits stretched, as seen in the hit cabaret musical The Whiskey Bar, which takes first place and involves an uncanny fourteen-person cast.

The show includes an engaging array of visual and intellectual stimuli, while remaining accessible with ready allusions to a political awareness as well as commentary on religion and social issues and trends. The excitement and support of the audience for the actors and other practitioners involved is almost tangible. In short (excuse the pun), there is something for everyone.

A truly memorable experience.


SHORT+SWEET 2012
People's Choice Showcase

Visit: www.shortandsweet.org/sydney