Year: 2008

We have three Australians, one with a spiritual vocation, one with a scientific vocation and one a bewildered young man who likes adventures and joins the army. Each of them follow their instincts, and their fates unravel. Each are placed in a crucible with the intense “bunsen burner of life under them”, and each are melted down to their core. Each in their ravelling life thread are taken to places that stretch them into enduring feats that only the pure core of humanity can confront and survive. These ordinary people become true heroes of the modern international world. “This is…

This is children’s theatre. Maybe I should write this is THEATRE, whether it be for children or us grown-ups. This production loves us and gives us something for the effort of joining them. We are important to their priorities of action. (Great artistic integrity is in play.) The audience at the large Sydney Theatre, was mostly youngsters and their parents. The response to the one hour and twenty minute play (no interval) was attentive, sharp and rapturous. What more could one want? The simple, clear uncluttered skill of the writing (Doug MacLeod) captured the young audience from the first moment.…

I did not think that I could be more depressed than I felt during and after attending last night’s performance of THE NARCISSIST by Stephen Carleton at the Opera House. Then, I woke up this morning and heard the 7am news bulletin about the new NSW Police Minister, Matt Brown, who had “quit the state cabinet just three days after being promoted” as details emerged of behaviour that were deemed inappropriate for a member of cabinet. My depression deepened. The elected Government of my state just seems to be made up and led by “Cowboys”. In the final scene of…

I paid up my $50 to become a member and join in the exploration of a season “of intimate events in and around the vast spaces of Carriageworks.” 50 bucks well spent. It is a bit like having a degustation at a restaurant. Some of it is great, layered with sensations, some of it is unpalatable but all of it is interesting even in the negatives. It is an adventure. Congratulations to Fiona Winning and her team and guests/artists. I saw DUAL on the Friday night. A piece of dance by Nalina Wait. This was a nicely conceived work. The…

In my review of Pacitti’s last offer CIVIL, as the opening performance in this festival of LIVEWORKS by the Performance Space at Carriageworks, I was being as “civil” as possible. I was, gently, in retrospect, being as politic as possible and therefore relatively generous about what I perceived as essentially a very bland and experientially dull and disappointing work. It was as the creator warned us in his program notes twelve years old. I gave it a respect for it had a sense of a past time and “history” and felt that it may serve as an introduction to the…

What a pleasure it is to go to the theatre and sit in a seat and have a wonderful piece of writing given to you as a reward for going. After the feebleness and the “slight” writing that we have recently been served up by The Sydney Theatre Company and other companies (notably, the Old Fitz this week: RADIO, the Upstairs Belvoir being a glorious exception: SCORCHED), it was a transcendent experience to be part of the Darlinghurst Theatre audience. This was not a chore of patience that one had to politely endure but an exciting, confronting and stimulating experience.…