Following yesterday’s look at our opera highlights for 2018, the Limelight team today looks back on the theatre that has excited us most across the last 12 months.

Jo Litson – Editor

Jack Ruwald, Anita Hegh and Jack Finsterer in The Harp in the South. Photograph © Daniel Boud

The Harp in the South, Part One and Part Two, Sydney Theatre Company

Every now and then a very special piece of epic theatre, running across several hours, comes along and sweeps you up in its embrace. Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of The Harp in the South, performed in two parts, reeled you in hook, line and sinker. Mulvany did a brilliant job of condensing the three novels, maintaining the spirit and drive of Ruth Park’s writing and capturing her vibrant characters. Superbly directed by Kip Williams, the cast was exemplary. We laughed, cried and ached for the flawed, complicated, loving, hopeful, battered characters, and were left totally spent emotionally but exhilarated.

The Flick, Outhouse Theatre Co and the Seymour Centre

Not a lot seems to happen on the surface of Annie Baker’s ineffably tender, three-hour play The Flick but by the end of it you are so completely caught up in...