KATE HERBERT-3MBS-SAT-07-MARCH-2026
In this radio review spot on Arts Weekly on Saturday 7 March 2026, I talk to Nick Tolhurst and Phillipa Edwards about La Mama Theatre’s new program of theatre events and I talk briefly about Moongazing that I saw On Demand (on screen).
Click the link nelow to listen. Its about 7 mins.
Program 2026 Summary
Currently playing:
Back to Te Maunga -Courthouse
Some Secret Should Be Kept -La Mama HQ
Moongazing & Saints -On Demand
1. La Mama Presents: Feb, March, April, May
Productions: 1 month block, 2 shows per month -one show at La Mama & Courthouse,
Education (March & May) selected productions)
On Demand season to follow all 8 shows (Feb – May)
Support: Robert Salzer Foundation.
2. Play: Scratch, Explorations, Immerse: June, July, Aug
Scratch- a live platform for performance makers to test new ideas in front of peers and community
Support: Cybec Foundation
Explorations- Artists are given three nights of public presentation (both venues)
Immerse - deeply focused 12-week practice-led program for 16 mid-career writers
Support: Cybec Foundation, John T Reid Trusts, and the City of Melbourne Multi-year Arts Grants Program in partnership with Arts Centre Melbourne and Regional Arts Victoria.
Partnerships:
3. Hope Punk Climate Festival: 1-20 Sept (TBC.)
storytelling and skills development in climate advocacy and action,
Support: in partnership with Learning Experiences Program Science Gallery Melbourne and Griffith University's Performance Ecology Research Lab (P+ERL)
4. Melbourne Festival of Puppetry: 21-27 Sept
Support: City of Melbourne and Arts Centre Melbourne.
5. Melbourne Fringe Festival at La Mama
October
6. Cultural Conservation in Action: November: First Nations-led month. Directed by Glenn Shea.Conservation of our First Nation's story, songs and dances
7. Faradays: December
Party month: music, poetry, cabaret
A Carlton takeover
Support: Local Business Partnerships.
THEATRE ONLINE
Written by Maki Morita
At La Mama Theatre, La Mama On Demand until Tues 10 March 12.00am (Stage season finished 1 March)
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: *** (3)
This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 7 March 2026. KH
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| Anna Fujihara image Darren Gill |
Moongazing, written by Maki Morita and directed by Ari Angkasa, is elusive, visually striking and more felt than understood. It drifts between waking life and digital dreamscape, exploring what guidance means in an age of disembodied voices.
A young Japanese-Australian woman (Anna Fujihara) is tethered to her online adviser (Sean Yuen Halley), a kind of Siri-of-the-future; a sleek, insinuating presence that offers affirmation, correction and algorithmic comfort. Fujihara, as the young woman, is tightly coiled, perpetually mid-scroll, her body pitched forward over her phone. Her performance is considered, albeit too evenly pace and emotionally muted, with the character’s interior life more suggested than fully revealed. Halley’s digital oracle’s calm cadences are faintly menacing and tinged with control.
Hovering at the edges of the woman’s flickering world is a mysterious woman older than the hills (Yumi Umiumare), a dreamlike mentor who may be ancestral memory, alter ego or moon spirit.
Umiumare’s stylised Butoh movement is slow, sinewy and exquisitely controlled and provides the production’s beating heart. Each gesture unfurls with ritual deliberation: a hand tremors, a spine curves, a foot roots to the earth. Umiumare doesn’t so much enter a scene, as seep into it. Her presence feels elemental, in contrast to the slick, oily digital patter.
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| Yumi Umiumare - image Darren Gill |
The design is spare is shaped by evocative lighting that bathes the stage in lunar washes and pockets of shadow that breathe with the performers. Pale light halos Umiumare’s white-painted form, while cooler, sharper tones delineate the technological realm, subtly reinforcing the play’s thematic divide.
Angkasa’s direction emphasises this visual and physical quality, although the dramaturgy occasionally wanders, the pace and rhythm lack variation and scenes accumulate, rather than building dramatic tension or action. Its central metaphor resonates: the moon as guide, algorithm as false prophet. Certain images in this production linger: a body folding and unfolding like a tide, a pale face lit by an unforgiving light. It is a meditation rather than a manifesto.
By Kate Herbert
Cast
Anna Fujihara
Yumi Umiumare
Sean Yuen Halley
Creative
Team
Writer: Maki Morita
Director: Ari Angkasa
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| Yumi Umiumare - image by _Darren_Gill |
