This week, theatre correspondent Peter Kemp looks at three local shows:
Lilydale Athenaeum Theatre
Barefoot in the Park
Season: April 29 – May 6.
Paul Bratterm a conservative lawyer, marries the vivacious Corie, but their highly passionate relationship descends into comical discord in a five-flight New York walk up apartment contending with a lack of heating, a leaking roof, several long flights of stairs, the oddball neighbour, the telephone repairman and Corie’s well-meaning mother.
The Basin Theatre
Same Time Next Year
Season: April 20 – 30.
New Jersey accountant George Peters and Oakland housewife Doris meet at a Northern Californian inn in February 1951. They have an affair and agree to meet once a year, despite the fact both are married to others and have six children between them.
Over the course of the next 24 years, they develop an emotional intimacy deeper than that one would expect to find between two people meeting for a clandestine relationship just once a year. During the time they spend with each other, they discuss the births, deaths, and marital problems each is experiencing at home, while they adapt themselves to the social changes affecting their lives.
Eltham Little Theatre
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
Season: April 21 – May 6.
Much Ado About Nothing is generally considered one of Shakespeare’s best comedies, because it combines elements of robust hilarity with more serious meditations on honour, shame and court politics.
It was probably written in 1598 and 1599 as Shakespeare was approaching the missile of his career.
The play is set in Messina and revolves around two romantic pairings that emerge when a group of soldiers arrive in town Benadick and Beatrice don’t love each other but then they do. Claudio and Hero love each other but then they don’t but then they do again.
