Year: 2012

  Belvoir presents EVERY BREATH by Benedict Andrews in the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir Theatre, Surry Hills. Dear Diary, EVERY BREATH: To summarise. I admired the actors and creative crew very much. I thought the play was poor. I thought it was hardly a second draft. I am stupefied that it is on the Belvoir stage at this stage of its development. I cannot admire the director’s efforts on and about this work. I am very, very upset for all those first play writers who don’t even get read let alone staged. Can I suggest to the Belvoir Artistic Team that…

  Darlinghurst Theatre Company and Fishy Productions present TIME STANDS STILL by Donald Margulies at the Darlinghurst Theatre. TIME STANDS STILL by Donald Margulies, written in 2009, is really a terrific play. Having read it last year, it is great to see it on our stages in Sydney. Contemporary theatre writing concerning burning issues surrounding our daily lives are rarely aired, if written at all, in contemporary Australian dramatic literature (unless they present lots of opportunities for sex i.e. UNDERBELLY). This play concerns the lives of two characters who work and have survived in the war zones of the world,…

  Focal Theatre in association with Tamarama Rock Surfers Theatre Company present: LYREBIRD by Amelia Evans at the Old Fitzroy Theatre. LYREBIRD by Amelia Evans is a new Australian play. It was developed at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 2010. It is a short(ish) one act play dealing with the effect of natural disaster on the lives of community and family. In this instance, bushfire. The guilt and despair of survivors of such catastrophe in the face of immense devastation and the human imperative to begin again is at the core of this work. Simply, but with an…

Christ Church St Laurence present the Lenten Concert 2012: MESSIAH by G.F. Handel at Christ Church St Laurence, Railway Square, Sydney. I once sang in a choir, Handel’s ACIS AND GALATEA. I loved it. My family household was not very ‘art’ conscious at all, but along with L.P. recordings of Mario Lanza (my dad’s favorite) we did have highlights from Handel’s MESSIAH featuring Joan Sutherland. I recently bought for myself a DVD recording of the MESSIAH featuring Cantillation and Teddy Tahu Rhodes from ABC Classics (2002). I had heard a very stimulating discussion on the Handel work on ABC Radio…

Genesian Theatre presents THE MERCHANT OF VENICE by William Shakespeare at the Genesian Theatre, 420 Kent St, Sydney. In the ‘dark’ week of production at Belvoir, as the Downstairs Theatre is not utilised for outside productions, and so nothing was on in their spaces, and the Sydney Theatre Company had not any ‘mainstream’ performances in any of their usual venues for three weeks, (the major subsidised company in Sydney not showing work for three weeks – how can that BE?), and as I had seen the Darlinghurst and Griffin shows, when looking at the guide of What’s On in the…

Tin Shed Theatre Company and Deep Sea Astronauts in association with Tamarama Rocks Surfers Theatre Company presents THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST DRAGONS, AND OTHER CLASSIC TALES, AS TOLD BY AN OCTOPUS by Alli Sebastian Wolf at the Old Fitzroy Theatre. I delayed attending this production directed by Scarlet McGlynn of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST DRAGONS, AND OTHER CLASSIC TALES, AS TOLD BY AN OCTOPUS by Alli Sebastian Wolf, as Jason Blake in his Sydney Morning Herald review, early March, had suggested that time may improve the experience. I wanted to see it because the title was whimsically attractive…