Month: February 2010

  DOUBLE EXPOSURE is part of a triple bill of Comedy and cabaret offerings that play on alternate nights in the Downstairs Theatre until the 14th February. The brochure for this show says “Two strange men, two strange minds, one big night of stand up comedy.” The first half of the program features Marty Murphy in HAPPY AND CLEAN, directed by Tommy Murphy. Marty Murphy, dressed in a period pin striped suit and shiny black shoes, with a white handkerchief tucked, necessarily in the suit pocket, and very neat hair, “takes us on a surreal journey as he reveals how…

  Sydney Festival, 2010 presents OEDIPUS REX & SYMPHONY OF PSALMS by Igor Stravinsky with the Sydney Symphony and Sydney Philharmonic Choirs in the Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House. I need to declare that I do not have any expertise in this field other than as an enthralled attendee at selected music concerts. I do not go to the concert hall as a matter of course but as a dilettante who either knows the work well or wishes to explore the composer or artists and their contribution. I do hold Stravinsky high on my curiosity chart and am not greatly…

    The following excerpt is pulled from the HAPPY AS LARRY blog: These programs are not the only inadequate programs. And at least they are free. Unless you can afford the $10 for the STC shows, [$12 for the more “elaborate” programs of the Festival – dramaturgically, generally, poor in comparison to the London experience] and many people can’t and won’t pay it, the artists remain virtually unknown, unless you gather around the poster on the wall in the foyer. You and a couple of hundred as you exit!!!!! Surely a handout on each seat or for the interested…

Sydney Festival 2010 present HAPPY AS LARRY, Shaun Parker & Company at the Everest Theatre, Seymour Centre, Sydney. Like, but, unlike Michael Keegan-Dolan of Fabulous Beast who brought us GISELLE, Shaun Parker is credited as Director (as is Mr Keegan-Dolan) and then, Choreographer (not claimed by Keegan-Dolan). However it seemed to me that both these artists begin their work in a similar way. Select collaborators and from their uniqueness, their (gifts) develop a work from their range of possibilities and skills, predicated by the Director’s idea or “dream”. In the case of Mr Keegan-Dolan, this Festival, Giselle; in the case…

  Sydney Festival presents a co-production between Chichester Festival Theatre and Headlong SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR by Luigi Pirandello in a new version by Rupert Goold & Ben Power in the York Theatre, Seymour Centre. Written in 1921 and first performed in Rome in the Teatro Valle. “SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR” is a classic of modernism, a fundamentally subversive moment in the history of modern theatre. Its self conscious setting – an open stage prepared for rehearsal (of another Pirandello play THE RULES OF THE GAME) – its fragmented narrative, confusing time levels and…

      Sydney Festival present GISELLE from the Company FABULOUS BEAST led by Director, Michael Keegan-Dolan at CarriageWorks Bay 17. The first performance of GISELLE took place in June 1841 at the Paris Opera. It was conceived by the poet, author Theophile Gautier, inspired by Heinrich Heine’s work, De l ‘Állemange, where he came across a passage concerning “the snow white wilis (spirits of jilted brides) who walz pitilessly the whole night long” and lure and dance to death any who come their way during their dark haunting of the night. The music was sketched in 8 days and…