Month: July 2012

Photo by Brett-Boardman Griffin Theatre Company and La Boite Theatre Company present A HOAX by Rick Viede at the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. A HOAX by Rick Viede, is the winner of the 2011Griffin Award for Playwriting. It follows on from his 2008 Griffin Award winning play, WHORE. The machinery of A HOAX deals with Anthony Dooley, “Ant” (Glenn Hazeldine), who whilst working as a social worker, invents a story concerning the upbringing of an Indigenous girl called ‘Currah’ and writes a book, NOBODY’S GIRL, and fobs it off as autobiography. He finds a young woman, Miri Smith (Shari…

  New Theatre present ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE by Joe Orton at the New Theatre, Newtown. ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE (1964), LOOT (1965) and WHAT THE BUTLER SAW (1967) are the three major plays of Joe Orton. All, now classics, timeless in their observations. The form of Mr Orton’s inventions became progressively more and more sophisticated until finally in WHAT THE BUTLER SAW, we have a masterpiece of wit, at a Restoration play level of complication and satire, and a combined dangerous physical farce of the top notch vaudeville stage exemplars. Both ingredients insisting on actors of amazing skills to pull it…

Photo by Wendy McDougal O’Punsky’s Theatre presents THE SEAFARER by Conor McPherson at the Darlinghurst Theatre. Conor McPherson is an Irish writer who is regarded as “…quite possibly the finest of his generation” (Ben Brantley- New York Times). The Sydney season, this year, has also given us Enda Walsh and his exceptional THE NEW ELECTRIC BALLROOM, and, what with Mark O’Rowe and his TERMINUS last year, and, further back still, Martin McDonagh, pulsing vividly in our memory in regular Sydney theatre outings, one begins to wonder just why does this country, Ireland, throw up such impressive writers for the theatre…

Guest Pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) presents Tour Four, TROUT QUINTET and QUARTET FOR THE END OF TIME in the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House. The Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) presented Franz Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A major, ‘Trout” Op.114,D.667 (Composed1819, published 1829) and Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time (1941). Helena Rathbone (Violin), Christopher Moore (Viola), Timo-Veikko Valve (Cello), Maxime Bibeau (Double Bass) were joined by guest artist Saleem Abboud Ashkar (Piano) for the five movement “Trout” Quintet. This is a piece of some familiarity for me. It was a joy to…

  Dainty Group in association with Team Edna and the Barry Humphries conglomerate, (a wholly owned subsidiary of Edna Care Switzerland) presents EAT PRAY LAUGH! – a meditation of loss, gender and ethnicity by Dr Barry Humphries AC CBE. BARRY HUMPHRIES’ FAREWELL TOUR, at the Capitol Theatre, Sydney. I came to Barry Humphries’ work very late (I don’t mean to this actual performance late, from experience of other shows, I would never dare). EAT PRAY LAUGH! is the fourth or fifth show I have attended. I am a fan. My first time, I remember, was at the State Theatre. I…

  Michael Coppel, Louise Withers, Linda Bewick in association with Adrian Barnes by arrangement with Mousetrap Ltd London present Agatha Christie’s THE MOUSETRAP at the Sydney Theatre. The publicity for the production of Agatha Christie’s THE MOUSETRAP has centred around the 60th Anniversay of this play’s production. It has been running in London non-stop for precisely that length of time. It was felt this was a way to celebrate it. Given the penchant audiences have for the television productions of Ms Christie’s work – both, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot; and the unbelievable success of a soppy, soft series such…