Year: 2008

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…

On the card used for publicity it states “TRIPTYCH examines three elements-air, electricity and water-through dance, sonic and visual structures.” In the program notes “Our global respiration draws from air and water that has existed for 4.5 billion years. Our first and last breath define a human cycle; the water implicit within our bodies is a necessity for all known carbon based life; whilst the electrical sparks of the synapses which link us to the electric sheath and circuitry that kickstarts and maintains life processes, must be present for any of our “thoughts” to take place.” De Quincey Co is…

I attended this production with just a little trepidation. The colour photograph in the Sydney Morning Herald with all that “blood” all over the actors and the set looked…. well…. as if I were heading into another….. “Koskyesque” adventure in the theatre. After THE WOMEN OF TROY with the typical production “tricks” of the Kosky oeuvre and my shell shocked experience in the Ride On Company’s production of FAMILY STORIES: BELGRADE maybe my sensibilities were a little depleted and distressed. Now, I do not know much about Heiner Muller, except a little I have gleaned from reading and brief conversations…

The most important note in the program is from the writer John Doyle “This is my first play.” This is this very experienced writer’s, first play. Mr Doyle has being “honoured by the Australian Writing Guild for comedy eight times and for both of his mini-series, CHANGI and MARKING TIME. CLUB BUGGERY won a Logie Award for Most Outstanding Comedy; THE DREAM a Logie for Most Popular Comedy and CHANGI, the Logie for Most Outstanding Drama. MARKING TIME received a 2004 Logie nomination for Most Outstanding Mini-series/Telemovie, a 2004 AFI award for Best Screenplay in Television and the NSW Premier’s…

This play is written by a Serbian author dealing with the games children (may) play in the debris of a war zone. The war zone can be that of the domestic house front between the sexes, between the generations, between the neighbours, next door or next city. It is the terrible tale of the Human Animal when placed in extremes of stress. The stress is always relative and always viable for those in the thick of it. My body. My bed. My bedroom. My house. My suburb. My city. My country. And it is the humanity of it. The mothers…