Written by the Greek poet Aeschylus, it imagines the reactions of the Persian leaders to their army’s destruction at the hands of the Greeks. One of the few Greek tragedies to actually be set in their current day rather than mythic times, it’s essentially Ancient Greek contemporary political fiction.

It’s a strange play and I couldn’t quite work out what Aeschlyus’ intention was with the piece. Did he want the Greek audience to sympathise with their enemies grief or was he trying to rub the Persians’ face in their loss?

The Happy Dagger Theatre production of Persians playing at Fringe World clearly follows the interpretation that the audience should sympathise with the plight of the Persian empire.

The most impressive aspect of Persians is it’s staging. Entering the performance space, the audience could see the chorus members finishing setting up thousands on plastic green army men on the floor. The toys represent the Persian army and they’re an effective way of conveying the huge loss the Persian Empire suffered.

The toy soldiers are pushed around the stage, creating the illusion of bloodied earth or a map of the Greek lands where Xerxes army met his downfall.

The issue with Persians (and this is an issue with the original text) is that it’s so histrionic. The whole play pretty much consists of a chorus crying over their war dead until Xerxes returns from war for a rather anticlimactic monologue.

The classical structure for tragedy is to show the fall of a great man because of their hubris in defying the will of the Gods. The problem with Persians is that we’re simply told over and over of Xerxes fall and not shown it happening. The play feels unfinished at the end.

Persians alienates the audience and that’s clearly intentional. Moments like the Chorus Leader’s quasi rap whilst resurrecting the dead King Dareius are probably meant to estrange the audience and make them see the universality of the play’s themes but for me, it just came off as bizarre.

Maitland Schnaars makes for a powerful presence as Dareius and his performance stands out as one of the play’s highlights. The chorus does some very good work physically, though the constant exaggerated wailing made me feel like I was being shouted at.

Persians has a lot working for it like inventive staging, strong music and an interesting historical context. Though I suspect the play’s reliance on alienating theatrical effects makes it very much an acquired taste.

The Fringe World production from local theater company North Sea Boat Terminals is a spirited and ambitious take on one of Shakespeare’s problem plays.

The small cast of young Perth actors have a big task at hand, all playing multiple characters and they rise to the occasion.

Caris Eves is particularly good as Helena, imbuing the character with strength even as she single-mindedly pursues a romantic partner who’s clearly a jackass. Nick Pages-Oliver does good work as the aforementioned jackass Bertram, though he over-eggs it on his dual role of The Widow making the comic character tiresome rather than amusing.

Brendan Polain is the Minstrel narrator as well as playing various side characters. He also impresses both with his musical abilities and his ability to differentiate the various characters he plays.

There’s a lot of imagination shown in the production’s design. The abundance of children’s toys throughout the set and childlike costumes smartly underscores the lead characters’ immaturity.

The King and Countess of Rousillon are both portrayed by animated projections with their lines prerecorded. It’s an inventive method of presenting the play’s authority figures and the cast plays off the animated characters well. The occasional pre-recorded soliloquy does drag though. It’s a pity that a live actor doesn’t play the Countess, one of Shakespeare’s best female roles.

The choice to symbolise the virginal Diana and her mother The Widow as plastic teapots is odd, though Eves somehow makes a swaying teapot strangely seductive.

The music and sound design is strong. One issue was that the musical accompaniment sometimes drowned out the dialogue. The sound design was problematic for Helena’s soliloquy right before the act-break where the loud gunfire and over-the-top antics of the other actors takes away from an important character moment.

The abridged text used does a fine job maintaining narrative coherence throughout the play and the actors seem very comfortable speaking Shakespearean verse.

The final scene, with it’s subdued look at married life implies where the production stands on the play’s Bertram problem which has perplexed Shakespeare scholars for decades.

All’s Well That Ends Well is an exciting and inventive take on Shakespeare’s classic. The ambition shown by the cast and crew suggests that there will be interesting work to come from the young company and director Sarah McKellar.

Dirk Darrow: NCSSI should appeal to any fans of Film Noir. Darrow is a spot-on parody of the typical Noir anti-hero. He speaks like Humphrey Bogart, wears a fedora and has a hard-boiled monologue running through his head.

One of the show’s best features is Darrow’s voice. Motley has developed his hard-boiled 1940s gumshoe detective voice well and the character of Dirk Darrow brilliantly walks a thin line between parodying and homaging great Noir characters like Phillip Marlowe. Motley clearly has a love of word-play which shines through in Darrow’s more complicated jokes.

The show is heavy on audience interaction (veteran’s tip: if you want to be involved make sure to sit near the front). Much of the show is devoted to mentalism, a performing art where practitioners simulate psychic abilities through sleight-of-hand and psychological suggestion. Darrow uses his mentalism powers to suss out the killer.

The mentalism side of the show is impressive. Even extremely attentive audience members would have trouble trying to work out how Dirk Darrow makes such accurate predictions.

Being so dependent on audience interaction means that the show is also heavily dependent on improvisation. Motley plays off the reactions of his volunteers very well, and quickly proved to be a master of backhanded compliments.

A highlight of the evening came when a gentleman’s iPhone started ringing. Dirk Darrow preceded to answer (with some initial difficulty seeing as how he’s normally used to a rotary phone) and thoroughly confounded the person on the other line whilst cracking up the audience.

Not every joke hits it mark, but Darrow was normally the first to admit that by following up duds with pithy one-liners aimed at his earlier joke. The finale (while technically impressive in a ‘how’d he do that?’ sort of way) crosses into gross-out humour not seen in the rest of the show.

Dirk Darrow: NCSSI is a funny and impressive one-man show. Motley is a talented performer who has created a great comedy character in Dirk Darrow. Lovers of Noir, mentalism or character based comedy should make sure to join the private eye for his next investigation.

One of the most physically impressive shows on the Fringe World Festival line-up, there’s high-flying wrestling matches and intense, lavishly costumed burlesque routines.

The show’s masked MC does a fine job of keeping the crowd involved and laughing. His introduction, complete with a back flip off the turnbuckle, set an upbeat tone to start things off.

Those squeamish about violence shouldn’t be put off by the wrestling side of Lucha Royale. The matches are kept to a playful tone and focused on humour rather than excessive violence.

The wrestlers, from Perth’s Explosive Professional Wrestling, all give strong performances. High-flying tag-team Silver Fox and Kookaburra Kid were stand-outs with their aerial attacks and kooky characters.

Another stand-out was the egotistical Senór Entertainment. Senór riled up the crowd with tales of his handsomeness and by the end of his match we’d all seen more of him than we wanted.

The tight time-constraints on the show meant the matches were quite short and there wasn’t much back-and-forth drama developed during the wrestling. Instead, it was based around gags and high-spots, which worked well with the mood of the show.

The burlesque performances were just as theatrical as the wrestling portions of the evening. The costumes, and how they were taken off, were particular highlights.

At one stage, the undisputed burlesque champion of the evening, twisted her way through the audience wearing red lingerie and a snake. Set to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Red Right Hand, the performer stalked her way around the crowd, teasing audience members along with way.

In the future, every performance should have an audience member as entertainingly frightened of the snake as one lucky lady was last night. Her desperate attempt to put as much space between her and the snake added greatly to the routine.

Lucha Royale is unashamedly about having a good time. It’s silly and naughty. While it wont leave you with a sense of philosophical enlightenment, it makes for mighty fine entertainment