Month: November 2008

    By Arrangement with Paul Eliott, Adam Kenwright and Pat Moylan, Queensland Theatre Company presents STONES IN HIS POCKETS by Marie Jones. This is an Irish play about an American film company making a film “in an unnamed scenic village in County Kerry, Ireland.” We meet some of the film makers and some of the locals who are working on the film as extras etc. Why anyone in Brisbane would care is beyond me. Why anyone other than perhaps the Irish would care is beyond me. In fact the audience I sat with last night seemed more than slightly…

  Photographer: Robbie Jack   Sydney Theatre Company and Sydney Opera House in association with the British Council present COMPLICITE: A DISAPPEARING NUMBER. Conceived and Directed by SIMON McBURNEY. Devised by The Company. Original Music by Nitin Sawhney. This is a work that is, finally, about the joys of Pure Mathematics. We are told: “Mathematicians are only makers of patterns, like poets and painters.” It is meant to assure us. Now, my fear of mathematics has prevented me from going beyond the simple tasks of accounting my monies in the daily exercise of living in a modern city: Bus fares,…

    Marc Platt, David Stone, Universal Pictures, The Araca Group, Jon B. Platt and John Frost present WICKED. Presented by ANZ. Entering the lush and beautifully refurbished Regent Theatre Melbourne and been ushered into an ultra plush, wide and heavenly comfortable seat, with acres of leg room, is a rare and promising beginning to a night at the theatre. The interior design of this auditorium is a fantasy in itself. In front of us is a most extravagant Broadway theatre design. (Settings by Eugene Lee.) A green breadth of castle and forest of the old Cinerama expanse (Those of…

I have to declare that I have never been a fan of Moliere. Either the verse translations or just simply, perhaps, the plots and characters always kind of bored me. (The STC Bourgeois Gentleman, a year or so ago was so horrible that I had sworn never to go again to a Moliere play.) So I attended the MTC production, the other evening, with no expectations. However, I had a wonderfully delightful time. My fellow audience companions did as well. I feel that the director Peter Evans has such a secure hand on this work from all areas of his…

THE LOWER DEPTHS is a great play. It is thrilling that a Company of artists would find it important and challenging to give the theatre going public in Melbourne the opportunity to see this text. The Company of artists committed to the production is extremely impressive and boasts of actors of high standing. I recommend that you attend if you can. The production and acting is flawed and very uneven but the play is memorable and ought to be within the repertoire of any discerning audience’s experience.Young audiences and students of the theatre, this is a must for you to…

\Music, as I have declared elsewhere, this year in this blog space, is a late appreciation for me. As I matured I began to attend and appreciate Concert going. My experience is that of a growing “lover” rather than a “knower”. In my concert going Mahler is a relatively new acquaintance. The San Francisco Orchestra under the guidance of Michael Tilson Thomas, both concert and recordings, was how I was first drawn into the Mahler spell. The extremely erudite introductory essay in the program notes by Gordon Kerry will be responsible for any knowing that I write here. I decided…