A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (Red Line Productions at the Old Fitz)
★★★★★ “Alexander Berlage’s staging is the finest production in Sydney in decades” Stage Noise
★★★★★ “Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece about the forked roads taken by Blanche and her younger sister Stella – one clinging to a fable of what the South once was, and one cleaving to the animal sexuality of Stanley – is brilliantly served by Alexander Berlage’s production.”
★★★★.5 “Directed by Alexander Berlage, Streetcar‘s grand scale of emotions is comprehensively loaded into the most intimate of auditoriums, providing a live experience as rich as anyone could wish for, and unrelentingly intense throughout its entire 3-hour duration. The classic text is left wholly intact, but Berlage introduces a sensibility that feels unequivocally contemporary, especially in terms of what the play says of gender politics.” Suzy Goes See
AMERICAN PSYCHO (Hayes Theatre Co/ Sydney Opera House/Canberra Theatre)
★★★★★ “slick, sexy and highly disturbing” The Guardian.
★★★★★ “A murderous romp that will have you snort laughing before it punches you in the gut” “this show is a pure joy” “Berlage is reunited with award-winning set designer Isabel Hudson, who has delivered a set as clever as it is versatile. Built atop a revolving stage, it contributes aggressively to the audience’s nauseous discomfort.” The Guardian.
★★★★★ “American Psycho is exciting, dazzling, crazy, unreal, too real, awful and an awesome night out. Don’t miss it.” Stage Noise.
★★★★ “The production looks incredible. Hudson and Berlage have created a mirrored set, the edges of which are framed by a strip of lighting which changes colour. Sitting on a revolve, and divided into three sections, with doors between them, the mobile set makes for wonderfully swift scene changes. The use of mirrors is inspired. Not only does it encapsulate the themes of narcissism and superficiality, but the reflections – which capture the audience as well as the actors – help create the strange, drug-filled world that Bateman inhabits, and plays well in the later scenes where the narrative warps and his sanity slides” Limelight.
★★★★★ “Berlage is reunited with award-winning set designer Isabel Hudson, who has delivered a set as clever as it is versatile. Built atop a revolving stage, it contributes aggressively to the audience’s nauseous discomfort.” The Guardian.
★★★★ “Berlage has done it again with his brilliantly staged production of American Psycho The Musical, finding just the right vein of slick, dark, heightened satire” Limelight.
★★★★ “a stunning production that thrills and chills.” “so assured, so funny, so thrillingly entertaining” Limelight.
★★★★ “a beautiful and terrifyingly good production” Stage Whispers.
Trailer for 2020 tour: https://youtu.be/5iV6yNaegUk
GLORIA (Outhouse Theatre Co)
“Director Alexander Berlage is one of Sydney’s most exciting stage talents” Daily Review. ★★★★ “thrilling inventiveness.” Daily Review.
“Outstanding” Theatre Travels.
★★★★ “Berlage has ensured that the hyper-realism keeps backhanding us with its depiction of a world in which people struggle to retain their core humanity, and in which empathy is a saleable commodity.” Sydney Morning Herald.
★★★★ “Smart satire applies blowtorch to office politics”. Sydney Morning Herald ★★★★ "Glitters with malevolent humour" Audrey Journal.
★★★★ “In a pitch-perfect production, Gloria delivers its punch early and packs multiple stings in its tail.” Audrey Journal.
★★★★ “some of the strongest direction I’ve seen in Sydney this year.” Theatre Travels
★★★★ “Director Alexander Berlage and his cast demonstrate a keen sense for funny/unfunny micro-aggressions at the interpersonal level. Berlage also keeps an unwavering grip on the levers of tension and release. The acting is pitch perfect.” Audrey Journal.
★★★★ “this show is seriously fantastic and creative.” Theatre Travels
★★★★ “Director Alexander Berlage (fresh from leading the outstanding Australian premiere of American Psycho The Musical) has created a highly provocative and compelling production” Theatre People.
★★★★ “Gloria is transfixing and a terrifically performed black comedy that, like Berlage’s last project, urges us to be less indifferent to the people who occupy the spaces around us and to check ruthless ambition at the door.” Theatre People.
HAND TO GOD (Red Line Productions at The Old Fitz)
★★★★ “There’s been a meticulousness to every one of director Alexander Berlage’s productions I’ve seen to date, stretching back to his post-NIDA debut, There Will Be a Climax, staged here at the Old Fitzroy Theatre in early 2018.” Audrey Journal
“Director Alexander Berlage uses Askins’ extravagant material to create a work of immense vivacity. It is a very heightened type of theatre, that allows for the most flamboyant flourishes, but Berlage’s insistence on nuance and authenticity, ensures that the wild humour is always partnered with meaningful insight.” Suzy Goes See
★★★★ “Director Alexander Berlage realises all the childlike playfulness, alongside the bizarre darkness and the frenzy of sexual desire” Sydney Morning Herald
“The direction of this script was excellently handled by Alexander Berlage with an eye for its strengths of shock humour and placing imperfect characters in deeply uncomfortable situations. In particular, Berlage nailed the tone of the production with a balance of absurdity and earnestness that was paced in time with the rapidly escalating stakes.” Night Writes
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (Hayes Theatre).
“a work obsessed with collective community anxiety, made within a time of collective community anxiety. How do you have perspective on new fears for onstage exploration when you’re still living in them?” The Guardian.
“Berlage’s sharp eye for aesthetics makes the show a fun experience by default” The Guardian.
★★★★ “Mel Brooks' horror spoof reimagined as a neon-coloured fever dream in this bizarre yet brilliant Hayes Theatre production” Time Out.
★★★★ “The show looks fantastic... Berlage has a great deal of fun with this often nonsensical pastiche of a show” Performing Arts Hub.
FUTURE REMAINS (Sydney Chamber Opera)
★★★★1⁄2 Sydney Morning Herald.
★★★★ Limelight.
PLATÉE (Pinchgut Opera)
★★★★★ “lighting designer Alexander Berlage... create playful anarchy on a stage crowded to overflowing”. Sydney Morning Herald.
LORD OF THE FLIES (STC)
★★★★ “Alexander Berlage’s lights are creepy and beautiful – sometimes at the same time – and give us a bone-deep sense of foreboding; slowly, they overtake the stage as we move beyond safe beginnings and into something previously unimaginable. It heightens the play into something arresting.” Time Out.
★★★★ “Alexander Berlage’s neon strip lights evoke ocean waves, landscape, wings, and become increasingly menacing as they turn blood red, like flaming, advancing spears” Sydney Morning Herald.