Elizabeth Debicki and Cate Blanchett are in The Maids at the Sydney Theatre Company. The Australian Ballet's Vanguard is at the State Theatre, Melbourne. A QUICK guide to the gigs and performances from around the nation most recommended by our critics. National film releases The Great Gatsby (M) As expected, Baz Luhrmann's take on the great American novel is way over the top: loud, brash and excessive in almost every way. Yet where it counts, he's true to the spirit of the original and he makes this famously unfilmable book a great and often entertaining spectacle. The cast, filled with Australian talent, is excellent, with Joel Edgerton a stand-out. 3 out of 5. - David Stratton Sinister (MA15+) The story may sound familiar - a family moves into a new house where nasty secrets are discovered in the attic - but Scott Derrickson's superbly crafted exercise in supernatural horror scores on every level, with an ingenious plot, chilling special effects, a mood of brilliantly sustained creepiness and a strong central performance from Ethan Hawke as a writer investigating a trail of grisly murders. This is a small masterpiece. 4 out of 5 - Evan Williams NSW STAGE: The Maids Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert star in a new translation of Jean Genet's The Maids by Benedict Andrews and Andrew Upton. Sydney Theatre, 22 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay. Opens tonight, 7.30pm. Tickets: $50-$105 (returns only). Bookings: (02) 9250 1999 or online. Until July 20. STAGE: Angles in America The most astonishing thing about this stunning revival of Tony Kushner's Angels in America is that it really feels like a great classic not much more than 20 years after it first appeared. A small group of homosexual Jews and Mormons became the standard-bearers for a new optimistic vision of the future, and in the face of their defiance and love of life, the old angels of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant world could do nothing but cower and shrink away. Eamon Flack establishes himself here as a fine director who delivers the drama in all its complexity. But the main thing that draws us into this production, across the eight hours it takes to experience (and I strongly recommend it be seen all in one day), is the acting. This production beautifully evokes all the comic sadness of humanity. - John McCallum Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir, 25 Belvoir Street, Surry Hills. Millennium Approaches today, 2pm. Perestroika tonight, 8pm. Tickets: $45-$65. Bookings: (02) 9699 3444 or online. Encore season at Theatre Royal, Sydney, until July 27. DANCE: Blak Blak delivers a welcome infusion of new creative blood to Bangarra, the country's foremost indigenous dance troupe. It boldly explores the role of tradition in contemporary urban contexts confronted by social challenges and deprived of transformative rituals. Gender underpins Blak's three-part structure. In Scar, the men explore conceptions of masculinity accompanying rites of passage into adulthood. Yearning sees the women drawing on common life experiences that affirm and threaten female identity. Finally, Keepers brings the ensemble together, transcending gender differences in a common celebration of tradition. - Eamonn Kelly Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. Saturday , 8pm. Tickets: $29-$89. Bookings: (02) 9250 7777 or online. Until June 22. QUEENSLAND MUSICAL: Jesus Christ Superstar This arena spectacular stars Tim Minchin as Judas, Jon Stevens as Pontius Pilate and Melanie C as Mary Magdalene. Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Melaleuca Drive, Boondall. Tuesday, 8pm. Tickets: $95-$149. Bookings: 132 849 or online. Until June 18. LIVE MUSIC: At Last: The Etta James Story Preview: Melbourne singer Vika Bull sees herself in American soul and blues legend Etta James. "It's that trying to act tough, putting on a 'don't mess with me' attitude," she says. Having enjoyed success for the past 25 years as a performer, mainly alongside her sister Linda, Bull admits she isn't really a toughie, but she's hoping to bring to the show something of James's character as well as her talent. At Last documents James's career, spanning almost 50 years, and tells the story of her turbulent life, plagued by drug addiction at the peak of her success. The veteran American star, whose hits include At Last, Something's Got a Hold on Me and I'd Rather Go Blind, died a year ago, aged 73. "It's not dull," Bull says of the story. She had it tough. The story deals with that, but it comes across that she was always a fighter and also had a great sense of humour. You don't come away from it thinking 'poor Etta'." - Iain Shedden Brisbane Powerhouse, 119 Lamington Street, New Farm. Saturday, 1.30pm and 7.30pm. Tickets: $59-$69. Bookings: (07) 3358 8600 or online. VICTORIA DANCE: Vanguard The Australian Ballet's Vanguard delivers a sweeping view of what a classical company considers its territory and comes with the bonus of wonderful music, starting with Paul Hindemith's modernist Theme with Four Variations (The Four Temperaments) and ending with Steve Reich's minimalist, driving Double Sextet to accompany Wayne McGregor's Dyad 1929. Between, Jiri Kylian's Bella Figura uses a collage of baroque and baroque-style. George Balanchine's The Four Temperaments (1946) is astringent, precise, sophisticated, cerebral and incredibly exposing. It was thrilling to see it again, even if the ballet's magisterial command and patrician wit and elegance were insufficiently projected on opening night in Sydney. In Kylian's Bella Figura (1995) the atmosphere is tentative, questioning and tender. An extreme contrast, Dyad 1929 (2009) is a space-age ballet that dazzles with its bright white setting and bodies stretched, extended, manipulated and distorted to the max. - Deborah Jones State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne. Tickets: $39-$156. Bookings: 1300 182 183 or online. Until June 17. EXHIBITION: Monet's Garden Monet's Garden is the latest in the series of Melbourne winter blockbusters, and is bound to attract enormous crowds, although it presents only a very partial view of the painter. The works mostly come from the Musee Marmottan in Paris, and are largely pictures left in his studio at his death. There are fine works, but also unfinished pictures that he would not have wanted shown. Monet's early work is poorly represented, but the interest of the exhibition lies in the images of his famous garden and pond at Giverny, and the moving spectacle of his struggle with failing eyesight. - Christopher Allen National Gallery of Victoria. 180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne. 10am-5pm. Tickets: $10-$26. Bookings: (03) 8662 1555 or online. Until September 8. SOUTH AUSTRALIA LIVE MUSIC: Bernadette Robinson in Concert Following the critically acclaimed tour of her one-woman show Songs for Nobodies, Bernadette Robinson performs her favourite songs as part of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre. Friday, 9.30pm. Tickets: $50-$55. Bookings: 131 246 or online. WESTERN AUSTRALIA STAGE: Driving Miss Daisy From the moment Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones enter simultaneously from opposite wings in Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy, the spontaneous eruption of applause indicates that everyone's aware of the theatrical masterclass lying ahead. This Pulitzer prize-winning, racially charged, classic odd-couple tale of a wealthy Jewish dowager and her warm-hearted African-American chauffeur is given the broadest of stand-and-deliver staging in David Esbjornson's production. Ultimately, everything is there to convey the star power, and it does. Within 10 seconds of the end, it seemed that every person in the theatre was on their feet, some with tears in their eyes. It's hard to ask more from any theatre production. - Martin Buzacott His Majesty's Theatre, 825 Hay Street, Perth. Opens today, 2pm and 8pm. Tickets: $100-$200. Until June 19.