Fans of Veep and The Thick Of It will love this political farce

While a real sense of comic catharsis does elude this frenetic entertainment, POTUS is performed with flair by a ferociously talented and funny cast, combining physical humour, exaggerated lunacies, and sardonic satire.

The “curtains behind curtains” design works well, although director Marni Mount could alleviate some sense of the futility, and the passivity, the audience might feel by including them more.
The play’s final reclamation of “c—” doesn’t feel like enough, given world events, and if these characters can’t break the glass ceiling, they could at least tear down the fourth wall to vent their rage and implicate us all more thoroughly in the unfolding shitshow.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

MUSIC
THE BALANAS SISTERS ★★★★★
Melbourne Recital Centre, February 14

Contrasting the old with the new and the dramatic with the meditative, Latvian violin-cello duo The Balanas Sisters made a dazzling first impression on Melbourne audiences.

Violinist Kristine and cellist Margarita united their dynamic musical personalities to present two bold baroque utterances interleaved with two contemporary contemplations.

Beginning with an arrangement of Handel’s Passacaglia in G minor by 19th-century Norwegian composer violinist Johan Halvorsen, the sisters immediately seized the audience’s attention with feisty yet nuanced playing.

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Their own arrangement of two movements from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (the first movement of Winter and the last movement of Summer) was also powered by seemingly inexhaustible energy.
Both baroque works were illuminated by the bright tone and powerful inbuilt resonance of Kristine’s 1787 Gragnani violin and Margarita’s 1849 Charles-Adolphe Gand cello.

A complete change of mood came with Sanctuary by Adelaide-based composer Anne Cawrse.
Here the duo’s keen ear for finely calibrated dynamics and tone colours came to the fore; the score’s initial evocation of birds using the so-called “seagull effect” beloved of Peter Sculthorpe, alternating with more fluid ruminative passages.

Based on the writings of the 16th-century Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila, Castillo Interior by fellow Latvian Peteris Vasks juxtaposed moments of linear introspection with more turbulent minimalist textures.

Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello provided the perfect conclusion to this stellar recital. A work of startling modernism rather than hazy impressionism, the sisters ensured the sonata sounded as fresh as when it was written in the early 1920s.

Relishing the challenges of this technical tour de force, their fearless playing brought abundant character to the witty, pizzicato-driven scherzo and rustic finale, creating a foil to the relatively placid first and third movements.

Such an engrossing study of contrasts can only raise the hope that these consummate musicians will soon return.
Reviewed by Tony Way