Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Melbourne, Sunday. The Glory Box. Melbourne, Saturday. Luke Mullins and Paula Arundell in Angels in America, Sydney. A ROUNDUP of the smartest things to see and do around the nation this weekend. VICTORIA STAGE: Glory Box Paradise In a Finucane & Smith show, the balance of light and dark, polish and roughness, masculinity and femininity is a tense one. Contrast is dialled up to 10 in Glory Box Paradise, at Melbourne's fortyfivedownstairs. For each innocent burlesque tease (such as Jess Love's rope skipping in tap shoes or Sarah Ward belting out a disco torch song as her alter ego Yana Alana) there's a gloomy reckoning. In earlier shows from Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith - from The Burlesque Hour on - Finucane shared the blowback workload with artists such as Maude Davey and Azaria Universe: women you objectify at your peril. Here Finucane offsets the lighter acts by playing violent predators, male and female. In the most successful of these, Finucane plays the bare-chested thug singing Iggy Pop's Candy to an uber-feminine ex. Glory Box Paradise has some terrific dance contributions from Holly Durant, Lily Paskas and Yumi Umiumare. - Chris Boyd Fortyfivedownstairs. 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne. Saturday, 7pm and 9.30pm. Tickets: $25-$88. Bookings: (03) 9662 9966 or online. Duration: 1hr, 45min. Until August 11. EXHIBITION: Australian Impressionists in France It is a misnomer to call Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton impressionists, for their style derives from a mixture of realism and plein-airism. These and others receive proper attention in an outstanding NGV exhibition. - Christopher Allen National Gallery of Victoria, 180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne. CLASSICAL: Barefoot Fiddler Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja performs concertos by Bach and Mendelssohn, plus a work by Argentinian composer Ginastera. Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne. Sunday, 2.30pm. Tickets: from $45. Bookings: 1300 182 183 or online. until Monday. NSW MUSICAL: Hot Shoe Shuffle Preview: Veteran producer David Atkins is presenting a 21st anniversary Australian tour of Hot Shoe Shuffle, his hit show from the 1990s. Conceived, produced, directed by and starring Atkins, it became one of the most successful Australian musicals and, before Tap Dogs and The Boy from Oz, was the first modern-day local musical to succeed at home and abroad. And after a break of 15 years the tough little powerhouse returns to the stage himself in the new show, playing Dexter, the role originally played by the droll showman Jack Webster. Jersey Boys star Bobby Fox re-creates Atkins's role of Spring, the eldest of a family of vaudevillian tap-dancing brothers trying to wrest control of their father's will, and Hairspray's Jaz Flowers plays April, their long-lost sister. - Graeme Blundell Sydney Lyric, Pirrama Road, Pyrmont. Today, 2pm and 8pm. Tickets: $79-$110. Bookings: 1300 723 038 or online. Duration: 2hr 25min, including interval. Until August 1. STAGE: Angels in America Tony Kushner's Angels in America really feels like a great classic not much more than 20 years after it first appeared. The two plays that make up this work told their story then of a group of marginalised people -- loving and struggling within the now distant historical context of the end of the Cold War -- in a way that brought them into the mainstream. Eamon Flack establishes himself as a fine director who delivers the drama in all its complexity. But the main thing that draws us into this production, over the eight hours it takes to experience (and I recommend it be seen all in one day), is the acting. Flack has assembled a wonderful cast. With Luke Mullins and Paula Arundell. - John McCallum Theatre Royal, 108 King Street, Sydney. Millennium Approaches, Saturday, 2pm. Perestroika, Saturday, 8pm. Tickets: $45-$65. Bookings: (02) 9699 3444 or online. ACT EXHIBITION: Paris to Monaro Hilda Rix Nicholas is largely remembered today for a few brightly painted and high-keyed pictures of girls on horseback mainly from the 1930s, which remind one of the travel posters of past decades. And yet this exhibition reveals a more complex artist who was trained around the turn of the century and developed as an Edwardian expatriate in Paris before the outbreak of the World War I. It also reveals the tragedies of her personal life, which one would hardly imagine from her later work, and in the end helps us see the oddly memorable girl and horses afresh. - Christopher Allen National Portrait Gallery, King Edward Terrace, Parkes. Daily, 10am-5pm. Inquiries: (02) 6102 7000. QUEENSLAND LIVE MUSIC: Renee Geyer Geyer and an 18-piece band will perform songs from her new album Swing, an exploration of big-band jazz, featuring classics such as My Funny Valentine and Fly Me to the Moon. It also includes reworkings of her earlier hits Say I Love You and It's a Man's Man's World. Geyer said she got the idea to do a big-band album following the success of artists such as Michael Buble. "Since I was really young I've always idolised Count Basie, especially that album at The Sands with Frank Sinatra," she says. I've had about four versions of that album since I was 15. I liked Duke Ellington too, but when I heard Basie I was transfixed." - Iain Shedden Concert Hall, QPAC, Brisbane. Saturday only, 8pm. Tickets: $79-$179. EXHIBITION: Simon Starling Lecture Preview: English conceptual artist Simon Starling (pictured) - winner of the Turner Prize in 2005 - will address Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art, South Bank, tomorrow, marking the opening of an exhibition of his work In Speculum in Melbourne. His works investigate the legacies of modernism and globalisation, and seek to uncover the peculiar histories of specific objects and locations. "Starling's work makes dramatic leaps through time and space, taking the viewer on fascinating journeys, which explore the social, cultural, and material histories of artistic, scientific, and industrial manufacture," says Max Delany, the exhibition's curator. In Speculum is showing at Melbourne's Monash University Museum of Art until September, before coming to Brisbane's Institute of Modern Art from October 5 to November 30. Australian Cinematheque, Gallery of Modern Art, Stanley Place, South Bank. Sunday only, 1pm. WESTERN AUSTRALIA OPERA: Don Giovanni Preview: Teddy Tahu Rhodes will perform the title role in the West Australian Opera's production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Brian Castles-Onion will conduct the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. His Majesty's Theatre, 825 Hay Street, Perth. Tonight, 7.30pm. Tickets: $10-$160. Duration: 3hr including interval. Until July 27. STAGE: Other Desert Cities Preview: Other Desert Cities reverses the usual young-old liberal-conservative estrangement narrative in which the opinions of the rebellious kids are privileged and the oldies are "other" and often downright evil. It is a lament for the lost American century. The parents in Jon Robin Baitz's play were heavyweight Republican Party figures in their day. Now retired and living in Palm Springs, the likable and well-heeled couple are looking after a recently lapsed alcoholic and are about to celebrate Christmas with their grown-up children. The writing is sophisticated and often scintillating, the characters are vivid and credible, and the narrative arc is aerodynamic. - Chris Boyd State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, 174-176 William Street. Saturday, 7.30pm. Tickets: $29.50-$69.50. Duration: 2hr 15min including interval. NATIONAL FILMS The Conjuring (MA15+) This ambitious and well-crafted supernatural thriller is supposedly based on the case files of professional US ghost-hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Faringa), who documented mysterious events at the home of the Perron family in Rhode Island in 1971. Director James Wan (Saw) delivers some scary moments, but there are so many reminders of The Exorcist, The Amityville Horror and other classics of the demonic possession genre that much of the film feels stale and derivative. (3 stars) - Evan Williams Before Midnight (MA15+) Director Richard Linklater's take on life isn't going to resonate with everyone, but here he taps a universal feeling: one day you are 20 and have it all before you, the next day, or so it seems, you are 40 and your quiet fear is that most of it is behind you. The drama of Before Midnight unfolds in picturesque southern Greece. Ethan Hawke, in his T-shirt and wispy beard, is spot-on as the half-cool, half-daggy dad. Celine (Julie Delpy), frustrated in her work as an environmentalist, is considering taking a government job in Paris. What follows is an uncompromising dissection of a long-term relationship that is difficult to watch at times. There's a lot of talking, almost needless to say, and much of it isn't pretty. It's a bitter pill indeed to realise that being soulmates is not enough. (3 stars) - Stephen Romei Only God Forgives (MA15+) Ryan Gosling stars in this pretentiously stylised and hideously violent gangland revenge drama set in Bangkok and directed by Danish-born filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive). Smart visuals and impressive performances from Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas and Vithaya Pansringarm as an Asian crime boss aren't enough to disguise the essential emptiness of the story. (2.5 stars) - Evan Williams