Culture

Also, yes: we know the lighting could be better. But this isn’t Hollywood – it’s an elite dojo/school hall and neither we nor the school can spend our limited budgets on something so insecure as good lighting. And what are we going to do, have our hair sprayed? Are we going to dab on theatrical make-up? Are we newsreaders?

Sydney Theatre Company’s adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley is an entertaining two hours that comes with a geniunely unexpected twist.

Audrey Hobert’s debut album, Who’s the Clown?, is an unlikely hit full of mundane yet surreal detail that’s weirdly endearing.

German sculptor-photographer Thomas Demand, whose latest exhibition, The Object Lesson, is at the AGNSW, reframes reality in his meticulously crafted works.

This year’s Melbourne International Film Festival featured some great films – including a stunning retrospective of Chantal Akerman – but where was the risk?

At first, the zoo seemed like a place of freedom. The woman drove with the infant in the car – liberation, leaving their suburb – when the autumn mornings were crisp, melting to summer-like noons. She’d purchased a membership on that first visit. Now she’d been four times – got her money’s worth, she told herself with an inflated feeling of achievement. On the first visit, her son did not seem to see anything. She pointed out the giraffes, from a distance, and some wallabies. He’d stared with expectation at a tree or the sky or at her pointing finger.

Victorian Opera’s Abduction – an interpretation of Mozart’s opera that sidesteps its orientalism – showcases some stunning new talent but scurries over complexity and nuance.