Reviews
CATHEDRAL
"Breathless and breathtaking in its ambition. It is a superb achievement.”
Adelaide Advertiser
"Expectations are overwhelmed.”
The Barefoot Review
“Caleb Lewis’ writing is hauntingly poetic, in a truly epic sense.”
Theatre travels
“I found myself holding my breath in wonder.”
Glam Adelaide
“Moment by moment, we learn of life and its mysteries. Lewis builds our knowledge of Clay's history, incident by incident, leading to a transcendent climax.”
Broadway World
Rust and Bone
"Stories overlap. Worlds collide. Threads upon threads upon threads are interwoven to create a wonderfully rich tapestry. This is a remarkable piece of storytelling.
Australian Stage.
“Sinewy, potent and evocative... Lewis's plaiting of stories is as artful as it is insanely demanding on the cast, who must morph between radically different roles, swiftly and precisely."
The Australian
“These stories and characters and the rawness with which they’re rendered would be compelling enough on their own, but it’s the form Lewis has given them that makes this work one of the best of the year. Lewis and McMahon poke and provoke the collective beast and it roars. This is brutal, tell- it-like-it-is theatre that trades eccentricities and affectations for the real deal: writing and acting. How much more do you need?”
Crikey
“The prose is charged with anguish and regret. The dialogue is constant and unrelenting. A superbly executed piece of theatre.”
Time Out
“Rust and Bone is a magnificent play. It’s far too dark to use the word ‘entertainment’, but for the strong hearted, it’s a highly recommended evening of intensity.”
Arts Hub.
“My expectations were sky-high and believe it or not this production was actually better.”
Same, Same
THE HONEY BEES
"A strong debut from Red Stitch's Ink programme,"
Australian Stage Online
"Lewis plays his metaphors lightly. But there's plenty of semiotic honey to be found if you're prepared to pick through the surface wax."
The Australian
"Lewis's biggest strength is humour."
The Age
'A production not to miss.'
Radio Monash
"An insightful and engrossing piece of theatre to add to Red Stitch's ever-growing repertoire of local successes."
Arts Hub
DESTROYER OF WORLDS
"Brave, brilliant, emotional stuff."
The Advertiser
"A brand-new Fringe treasure."
The Australian
"So original and out there it has no comparisons."
The Barefoot Review
"A wondrous take on unresolved issues."
Samela Harris
"Lewis's dense, lyrical writing and elliptical approach to a familiar scenario make for a captivating 60 minutes."
Crikey
"An outstanding piece of theatre: edgy, touching, relatable and funny - not one to miss!"
Radio Adelaide
"A really talented Australian playwright, really playing with performance form. Great stuff!"
Radio National
"It's complex but exceptionally well-written... Performances, too, are excellent... Bizarre and unconventional? Definitely. But funny, quirky, insightful, honest, compelling theatre? Undoubtedly."
Adelaide Theatre Guide
"It's like watching a Charlie Kauffman film, on stage. Seriously you should see this, it's excellent. 5 Stars."
Kryztoff RAW
"Caleb Lewis and his collaborators are destined for greatness."
Glam Adelaide
Maggie Stone
“In his astutely incisive, often bitterly funny, new work, Maggie Stone, playwright Caleb Lewis asks : “How do borrowing and lending affect our relationships with others ?” And he doesn’t just mean financial transactions, but the effect of emotional debts; the price of magnanimity and the cost of being beholden. With Caleb Lewis’s inventive, accessible new work, State Theatre concludes a strong season on a high note.”
The Australian
“Playwright, Caleb Lewis, has written an impressive script. He has focused on one woman and her contact with a poor African family and, in doing so, explores the role of charity and whether it assists or oppresses those who receive it… Maggie Stone is well worth seeing.”
Independent Daily
“In Maggie, playwright Caleb Lewis has created a character that is extensively flawed yet somehow still likeable… This is a play about the people in our community and the attitudes that make up our society. It will make you question your own views and actions, and remind you that there is always more going on than you may appreciate.”
Kryztoff, RRR
“A superb evening of thought and emotion provoking theatre that will stay with audiences for a long time after.”
Broadway World Reviews
Dogfall
“Poetic and heartfelt, tender and brave… This is honest, authentic storytelling, beautifully written.”
Aussie Theatre
“The wonder is Lewis’s imaginative insight.”
Realtime
“An ambitious story of tremendous scope. Impeccably delivered, superbly written… the play exceeds all expectations.”
Adelaide Theatre Guide
“Extraordinary - imaginative, lyrical and heartfelt with a nightmarish imagery that suggests Ionesco at his most absurdly bleak and Donny Darko at its most cogent.”
The Adelaide Review
"Gritty and ambitious."
Broadstreet Review
“Lewis's script is stunning, lyrical and frightening, leaving you breathless. This is the best thing I've seen in a very long time.”
City Messenger
"An intensely disturbing deconstruction of war."
DC Metro Arts
If There Was A Colour Darker Than Black
"The experience lingered for days."
Anne Thompson, Real Time
Death in Bowengabbie
“Lewis is a genuine writing talent. His whimsically mordant new monologue has been a deserved favourite of the Fringe.”
The Australian
“Simple, funny, tender and brave… This is honest, authentic storytelling, beautifully written and the best piece of Australian theatre I have seen in six months. Lewis and Brackman have done a stunning job”
Augusta Supple
“I had a good feeling about this one the moment we got to the Old Fitz… When a play is winning awards for which it’s not even being considered, well, that’s quite an endorsement”
The Brag
“Death in Bowengabbie is a very tidy package.”
The Age
“At times intimate and poignant, witty and amusing, Death In Bowengabbie is a stellar show laced with pathos and black humour. Final Word: Riveting.”
Rip It Up
Men, Love & the Monkeyboy
“Lewis triumphs in his fusion of comedy and heart.”
Citysearch
“Lewis knows how to plot. The play is welcome for taking a hard and occasionally confronting look at the mythos and rituals of a subset of Australian masculinity.”
Sydney Morning Herald
"Lewis has a good feel for dialogue and comedy. He creates dramatic moments that have us by turns, laughing, cringing, shaking our head in disbelief and empathising with the characters... Monkeyboy is witty, insightful and entertaining."
The Sunday Telegraph
"The opening scene was explosive and unpredictable and set the tone for the rest of the play- high drama one moment, high comedy the next. So simple, but so tickled the ‘Ahowclever' gland. Very good stuff"
Drum Media
“A close, comic appraisal of Australian manhood. Lewis’s script yields plenty of comedy but avoids caricature. There’s enough narrative sophistication and finessed dialogue to keep swinging, the result is a very funny play.”
Time Out
Aleksander and the Robot Maid
“Lewis's new play is well on the way to becoming an engrossing theatre experience for adults as well as its target audience, children aged eight and up.”
Sydney Morning Herald
“Terrific theatre for kids aged 7-10, a rare thing in children's theatre.
Elissa Blake
“I felt a shiver tingle across my skin and a tear form in my eye as we watched one friend save another and were reminded that not everything is about ambition, work, lifestyle... and sometimes it takes a play like Aleksander and the Robot Maid to remind us of that. I urge you to go... I loved it. “
Augusta Supple
“My two eight-year-old guests were gripped by this story and despite some scary moments they both loved it.
Robyn Willis, Daily Telegraph
Songs For The Deaf
“Lewis is a genuine new writing talent. He has an ear for the manners and anxieties of contemporary Australia.”
The Australian
“A tour-de-force for writer and performer”
City Messenger
Nailed
“Nailed is magnificent and moving. Lewis's world is our world, his characters entirely three dimensional and frighteningly reckless… the overall effect is enthralling.”
FBI Radio
“At a time when potent theatre that really grabs its viewers by the throat seems thin on the ground, Nailed is all the more a standout. Lewis has crafted an at times highly visceral, often unsettling, but always utterly human love story… It’s one of those precious times in theatre where everything works and we merge with the very pulse of this drama.”
Brag
“I am convinced Lewis marks the appearance of a significant new talent.”
The Sun Herald