Year: 2010

    Arts Radar in association with B Sharp presents WOYZECK, written by Georg Buchner, translated by Carl Richard Mueller. At the Downstairs Theatre, Belvoir St. WOYZECK by Georg Buchner (1836-37) has a reputation of some standing and is more often than not, met, as a regularly performed piece in most university theatre societies. How much of this standing is academic appreciation, with hindsight, and how much of it is in the witnessing of it as engaging performance is my problem with the piece. I have never had an experience with this text that has been engrossing or given me…

    William Zappa in partnership with Darlinghurst Theatre Co. present WINTER’S DISCONTENT written and performed by William Zappa at the Darlinghurst Theatre. One of the influential books, among many, on my view of the actor is a 1987 publication called THE WAY OF THE ACTOR, subtitled “The Path to Knowledge & Power” by Brian Bates (Shambhala). Brian Bates is a psychologist who spent seven years researching the psychology of acting with students of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He went on to be a Director of the Medical Psychology Project at the Department of Psychology, University…

    Opera Australia presents La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker). Opera in two acts by Vincent Bellini. Libretto by Felice Romani, after Scribe’s scenario for Jean-Pierre Aumer’s ballet La Somnambule, ou L’arrivee d’un nouveau seigneur (1827) This is my second opera of Vincenzo Bellini. The first was I Capueleti e I Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montague’s), presented by Opera Australia last year and in the chronological journey of the composer’s output, La Sonnambula is the direct follow up. First performed on the 6th March, 1831 at the Teatro Carcano, Milan. The story is based on a ballet by Scribe and…

Advice for every writer: Write what you know. In the program notes from Tommy Murphy: “Memory is like writing a play. After about a year of writing, something clicked in the story and I was surprised to discover that much of the play is in fact underpinned by disputed memories. Perhaps this is a likely conflict in a family, among people who may have opposing interpretations of their shared history and shared identity. The voices in this play stem from people I know and love but as soon as they found their way to the page they were characters bending…

  Australian Brandenburg Orchestra present HANDEL CORONATION at the City Recital Hall Angel Place, Sydney. The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra is celebrating its 21st Birthday. It also paid tribute to Ken Tribe “our dear friend and patron of the Orchestra, who passed away last week at the grand age of 96”. Music by Henry Purcell and George Frideric Handel were represented by music for choir. The first work was Suite from Abdelazar, or the Moor’s Revenge, Z 570 by Purcell. Music arranged from the incidental music for Aphra Behn’s play, written in 1695 (Behn was one of the first professional female…

    Gaiety Theatre and Power Arts present KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN – The Musical. Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Book by Terrence McNally. Based on the novel by Manuel Puig. At the Darlinghurst Theatre, Sydney. On entering the relatively, small space of the Darlinghurst Theatre, the small company of performers, 11 in total, including 4 musicians, are on stage. Tuning, revising their instrumentation, pacing, glancing at the audience as we trickled in, nervously interacting with themselves, exiting and entering an upstage door, but mostly ‘imprisoned’ in the space and, finally, as the lights lowered in…