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by Michele Davis, directed by David Symons, at Playbox in the Raw and Trades Hall OFF THE POINT, by Michele Davis, is an exploration of mental disorder and the ways in which it shatters a family’s life, especially youth suicide. It’s not only strong material but highly pertinent given the alarming rise in youth suicide in today’s supposedly affluent society. Helen Kingsley (Michele Williams) lives in a coastal town with children Emma (Amanda Douge), Sam (Nathan Bocskay), Jane (Kestie Morassi) and the abandoned Ben (Brett Tucker)… This is undeniably strong material and the characters have been drawn with sympathy and credibility. Steven Carroll, The Sunday Age Strong performancesOFF THE POINT boasts a number of strong performances and sheds light on many of the fears and prejudices about mental illness and suicide… …The scenes of mum alone in her hospital bed, hearing voices and playing out her own private fantasies, are evocatively performed by Williams… David Crofts, Melbourne Times 
by Joanna Murray-Smith, directed by Joy Mitchell, at La Mama 
FLAME is well served by director Joy Mitchell and her cast of two, Michele Williams and Alex Pinder, who maintain the tension and the interest right up to the moment when the widow symbolically sets fire to her exquisite wedding dress. Leonard Radic, The Sunday Herald Sun Williams provides a measured and convincing portrait of a woman trying to rekindle her own life from the ashes of her husband’s death as well as escape his idolised view of their relationship, which continues to haunt her. David Crofts, Melbourne Times …Williams, as Louisa, finds a grim and steely edge that highlights the dissonance between the characters. Her icy, ironic tone previews the awful truth she reveals later about her betrayal of her husband. Herald Sun An early Joanna Murray-Smith play, FLAME is a dissection of a seemingly happy bourgeois marriage. Max (Alex Pinder) and Louisa (Michele Williams) are a successful couple – they dress well, they look good, they have interesting dinner parties, and interesting friends. But they’re also about to live and die through interesting times… FLAME, an ambitious play, takes us past the glossy surface of the couple’s life and exposes the lie at the heart of their marriage. It is, to an extent, Murray-Smith’s milieu, and she explores it well. By the time the play starts the marriage is over because Max is dead, killed in a car accident one wet night… Louisa has summoned Max so that she can both confess to him and reveal the hypocrisy of their life together… As they relive moments in their marriage, Louisa drops tantalising hints that something was wrong all the time… …this is very precise writing and Williams’ and Pinder’s performances are measured and controlled. Director, Joy Mitchell, also keeps things simple and tight. Steven Carroll, The Sunday Age 
by Rona Munro, at Chapel Off Chapel   BOLD GIRLS by Scottish playwright Rona Munro, is set in West Belfast in the early 1990s. Like a lot of recent Irish fiction about The Troubles… it deals with the domestic side of political turmoil. In this case, it portrays the lives of three women whose husbands are either dead or in Long Kesh… Marie (Michele Williams) is the figure around which the action revolves. Her husband – the idealised memory of whom keeps her going – was killed in the struggle. Her child wakes with nightmares because the children at school tease him about his father having his head shot off… When a young street kid, Deidre (Cassandra Magrath), gatecrashes their fraught little circle everybody is affected and Marie’s kitchen becomes the crucible in which the metal of their friendship is tested. There are some fine performances, especially Williams in the pivotal role of Marie. Steven Carroll, The Sunday Age 
The Malthouse, November 2003
This intense piece – eight monologues on the theme of desire – has had three earlier productions, in 2001 and 2002 at the Storeroom and earlier in 2003 at La Mama. It is very much an actors’ play, giving each of them two opportunities to create a distinct character, situation and emotional effect. These characters have only their desire in common, never realised, often thwarted, sometimes tragi-comic. The Murray-Smith play Flame, gives a twist… There is tension in the wife from the start, well conveyed by Michele Williams’s tight voice and tense body language… Helen Thompson, The Age See more reviews: |
