Month: April 2010

    AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA present BACH AND BEYOND at Angel Place, Sydney. The concert featured the Orchestra with guest artists ; Sara Macliver, Soprano; Fiona Campbell, Mezzo Soprano; Andrew Staples, Tenor and Matthew Brook, Bass. The first half of the concert featured : Dimitri Shostakovich –Elegy and Polka. J.S. Bach – Missa Brevis in G minor BWV235. Arvo Part – Summa. Arnold Schoenberg – Litany from String Quartet No.2. The pieces were not played consecutively as listed, but rather the six parts of the Bach Mass were interleaved with the other works. Each piece was counterpointed in an unusual…

    A Steady Lads & Christine Dunstan production. CODGERS by Don Reid at the Seymour Centre, Sydney. 18 months ago I saw the original production of CODGERS at the Riverside Theatres. I waxed lyrically over the cast that brought to life a fairly old fashioned and conventionally structured play. A type of play not favoured by the powers that be in 2010. The players, a team of veterans of the Australian Theatre, gave an afternoon of entertainment and gentle moral enlightenment that, however, for me, transcended any reserves about the play. This new production that is in the midst…

Berkeley Repertory Theatre presents the world premiere of CONCERNING STRANGE DEVICES FROM THE DISTANT WEST by Naomi Iizuka at the Roda Theatre. The Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART) system takes me from San Francisco, and the Geary Theatre, across the Bay to Berkeley in 30 odd minutes. A homeless man helps me to negotiate the ticketing system at Powell St Station, as there is no other human about to assist an easily intimidated techno-phobe. He gratefully accepts my tip as thanks. If only he knew how thankful I am to him. I have not seen the new Berkeley Repertory theatre,…

  A.C.T.: American Conservatory Theater presents VIGIL written and directed by Morris Panych at the Geary Theatre, San Francisco. The American Conservatory Theater is the American theatre company that I have seen most often in my US life. It goes back to the late seventies (I think) when my very first American production ever was BURIED CHILD with a standout performance by Larry Hecht as Tilden. A memorable experience, I suppose, for the authenticity of the performance qualities and because of the writing (Pulitzer Prize 1979), and especially the quality of the acting, as individuals and, most impressively, as an…

  SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY presents Vasily Petrenko conducting Shostakovich, Symphony No.8 in C minor, Opus 65 at the Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco. So, I have snatched a two week break in the USA. My first stop is San Francisco, where I have many work connections to re-acquaint with, it has been three years, and, both, they and I are passing too quickly through TIME, not to catch and celebrate life with them. On April 3rd, my birthday, some friends take me for dinner at the Foreign Cinema Restaurant in the Mission district. The dinner booking is at 6.30pm!!! We…

  Sydney Theatre Company and The Border Project in Association with the Adelaide Festival of Arts present VS MACBETH (Most of it) by William Shakespeare at the STC Wharf2. On entering the theatre, a warning sign on computer screens hanging from the front lighting bar, on the sides, tell us to prepare to play Chinese Whispers. The first that was passed along my row of seats was “THIS PLAY IS CURSED.” This was indeed a prescient warning for what followed. This is a collaboration with an Adelaide based company The Border Project and the Sydney Theatre Company via The Residents.…