This exhibition at the Sydney Opera House offers the viewer two exciting opportunities. The first is to see a full series by Australia's only Magnum photographer, Trent Parke, whose eye for the unexpected and absurd detail at times calls to mind the early surrealist work of Magnum co-founder Henri Cartier-Bresson. The second is to go behind the curtain and revel in the shadow world that is the backstage area of one of the country's most famous theatres, where people are reduced to silhouettes against lamplight, pipes and power cords festoon the walls without discernible logic and bloodstained prosthetics, fluffy pink coathangers and household forks are among the odds and ends one may trip over while finding one's way in the dark. Far from making invisible the scaffolding that supports theatre, Parke's large-scale prints show that scaffolding can be spectacular, too.

The Australian, 17 December 2009