Year: 2009

  SUPERPERFECT. An international collaboration between Shopfront, Nibroll (Yokohama, Japan) & Keio SFC University (Fujisawa, Japan) at the Shopfront Theatre, Carlton, Sydney. Shopfront has been a theatre organisation out in south-east Sydney, Carlton for a very long time. It works with young performers from very wide ranging backgrounds from the community. In the Shopfront Annual Report for 2008 there is an encouraging and amazing breadth of work that this company covered in that year. The major work was a site specific work in the shopping street/area of Hurstville called (lost toy story). (The photographs of the event look quite fun.)…

    Photo: Toby Moore & Leeanna Walsman – Saturn’s Return Sydney Theatre Company present SATURN’S RETURN by Tommy Murphy at The Wharf 1. SATURN’S RETURN was originally commissioned and first produced by Sydney Theatre Company for its Wharf 2LOUD program. The first performance of the original season took place in August 2008. A year in development since then. Mr Murphy has had a year which has included the play being “workshopped and performed in a rehearsed reading at the National Studio (London)… and a secondment at the Royal Court…… I benefited from stepping away from the play to gain…

Opera Australia presents at the Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House: I Capuleti e i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montagues). Opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini. Libretto by Felice Romani. I Capuleti e i Montecchi by Bellini is a co-production with Opera North (UK) and Opera Ireland. The first thing to say is, for those of you, like myself, unfamiliar with the opera, “It’s not Shakespeare.” Based on other material prior to the Shakespeare play (Ovid etc), this story line is set in civil war between rival factions, the Capuleti and Montecchi, and like the more famous play’s story…

Photo: Laura Brent – Dealing With Clair mt productions and Griffin Independent present DEALING WITH CLAIR by Martin Crimp. DEALING WITH CLAIR is a very early Martin Crimp (1988) and it is interesting to see alongside the STC production of the more recent Crimp play THE CITY (2008). Whether it be the “auteur” tendencies of Benedict Andrews or nor, or, if it is just the development of the writer’s styles (and aesthetic interests) over time, I found Cristabel Sved’s Direction of DEALING WITH CLAIR very engrossing and clear in the service of the playwright. This work set out to solve…

  Arts Radar in association with B Sharp presents THOM PAIN (based on nothing) by Will Eno at the Downstairs Theatre at Belvoir Theatre. For Thom Pain, I read, initially Tom Paine. Tom (Thomas) Paine (1737-1809) agitator, activist involved in The American War of Independence and The French Revolution wrote among other things THE RIGHTS OF MAN (1791-92) and THE RIGHTS OF MAN, Part Two (1794). After falling foul of Robespierre, in France, he was rescued and returned to the USA in 1802, where he was ostracized as an atheist and free thinker and died (1809), alone and in poverty.…

Photo: Frank Strobel Sydney Symphony Orchestra. 2009 Season. KALEIDOSCOPE PRESENTED BY St. George; BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra presented the film BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, Directed by Sergei Eisenstein (1925). With a new score arranged by Frank Strobel from music by Shostakovitch, in an Australian premiere. It is the FILMPHILHARMONIC EDITION. Film courtesy of Stiftung Deutsche Kinematek Berlin. Music courtesy of Sikorski Musikverlage. Sergei Eisenstein made BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN in 1925 and later ALEXANDER NEVSKY (1938) and the IVAN THE TERRIBLE, Parts One (1942, released 1945) and Two (1945, released 1958). POTEMKIN is regarded as one of the most influential cinematic films…