Seven Standout Sydney Festival Shows Under 30s Can See on the Cheap

Most under 30s have a soft spot for Wes Anderson films — those pastel palettes and perfect symmetrical shots — well, if you’re a fan, head along to see the Schaübuhne Berlin and Complicité collab, Beware of Pity. It might seem like a tenuous link, but hear us out. The play is loosely based on a novel of the same name by Stefan Zweig — the man whose memoirs influenced Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. The story follows an Austrian cavalry officer in a complicated relationship with a millionaire’s daughter. Sounding more Anderson-ish by the minute, right? Not to mention the impeccably crafted costumes and artful production design, which looks as though it’s come straight from the head of Wes. Billed as a “prescient portrait of a Europe stumbling toward chaos”, the play is bold, adventurous and sexually charged. Oh, and us youngins get to see it on the cheap.

You know that feeling when you move into a new share house and discover the remnants of previous tenants? Sometimes, it’s fun, you find a six pack in the top corner of a kitchen cupboard. Sometimes, it’s gross, there’s an old toothbrush left in the bottom of a drawer. And sometimes, it’s intriguing, you find an earring wedged under a skirting board or a confusing message scrawled on the underside of a drawer. Geoff Sobelle, an award-winning absurdist playwright, has seized on this sensation for theatre. In a single house in a single night, we will see all of the people who will ever live there play out their stories within a hair’s breadth of each other. Come along just to see how they divvy up the cleaning roster.

Let’s get right to it, if the idea of audience participation tickles your fancy — hello, extraverts — One Infinity is the show for you. Together with musicians Genevieve Lacey and Wang Peng and composer Max de Wardener, Gideon Obarzanek, director, choreographer and founder of Chunky Move will create a singular work every night of the show’s run as he explores Chinese music and contemporary movement in One Infinity. The guqin, which is kind of like a guitar-violin hybrid and the recorder — you remember that from school, right? — will form the musical basis for the piece, then audience members will be invited to join in. Whether it’s for the sheer delight of losing yourself to dance or a sneaky attempt to pad out your resume as a SydFest performer, One Infinity is your chance to see a new work come together from where you kinda always wished to be — the stage.

Last time Ben Caplan was here in 2014, he was accompanied by a band called the Casual Smokers — a motley crew who helped their frontman spark a gnarly jamboree of pluck-and-twang folk ballads. For SydFest, he and his beard are back. It looks like he’s fired the band, kept their instruments and taken up acting. Old Stock is being billed as a refugee love story and, with a multitude of instruments strewn about the stage, there’s no chance this is going to be a spoken word gig. Seizing upon the Jewish musical tradition of the klezmer folk tale, Caplan will set about rattling off the tale of two Romanian Jews looking to make a new home in Canada in the early 20th century. If you’re desperate for a seat in the front row, some sort of face-protector wouldn’t go astray — Old Stock’s won a bunch of plaudits and when Caplan dances, Edinburgh Fringe Awards tend to fall out of his trousers.

Shanghai in the 1930s was a buzzing metropolis with a dark and mysterious edge; a city of vice, crime, glitz and glamour. And, this SydFest, you can step into Shànghǎi MiMi上海咪咪’s and get a glimpse of this intriguing world. Renowned for the creation of sumptuous worlds in which her burlesque performances take place, “volcanic live artist” Moira Finucanee recreates the stage of a nightclub cabaret in 1930s. Chinese jazz fills the air, singers, dancers and acrobats appear from all quarters, slinking through the half-light of the club. It’s immersive, colourful and, much like the period itself, totally entrancing.

Simone Weil was one of those 20th-century overachievers who seemed to be everywhere, doing everything at once. Political activist? Check. Groundbreaking philosopher? Check. Mystic? (consults Ouija board) Check. Way to make us feel like we’ve accomplished nothing, Simone. Now, director Imara Savage, composer Kaija Saariaho and soprano Jane Sheldon will bring a large portion of her crazy genius to Carriageworks with the Australian premiere of La Passion de Simone. This one-woman chamber opera will deliver a blast of vocal energy backed up with a fierce ideology, that’ll inspire all in attendance to get cracking on their own life goals. Philosopher and author Albert Camus was said to have referred to Weil as “the only great spirit of our times”. As we continue to defy and tear down our own heroes at dizzying speed, La Passion de Simone may just point you in the direction of a more durable icon.

Keen to spend a night at the Moulin Rogue but can’t afford the flights to Paris? You could watch Baz Luhrmann’s film for the hundredth time and singalong with Ewan and Nicole in your loungeroom. But, we’ll do you one better — head along to SydFest and you can see those can-can kicks in real life. Equal parts burlesque, circus and discotheque, Pigalle transports audiences to a time of anarchic abandon and Parisian pizzazz. With an international cast of cabaret heavyweights headed up by Marcia Hines, this is a saucy and occasionally scandalous tour through one of the most risqué red-light districts in Europe. Buckle up, it’s going to be one helluva ride.