Year: 2012

  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…

  Opera Australia presents Die tote Stadt (The Dead City) : An Opera in three acts by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Libretto by Paul Schott (pseudonym for Julius and Erich Korngold), after Georges Rodenbach’s novel BRUGES – LA – MORTE (1982). Sung in German with English surtitles, translated by Jonathan Burton. In the Opera theatre, Sydney Opera House. I believe Opera to be the greatest of the performing art forms. I also know that it is the hardest of all the forms to get right to justify such an observation. I have had GREAT experiences. A Meistersinger; aTristan; a Parsifal; a…

  A Critical Stages and The Follies Production of SYNCOPATION by Allan Knee at The Concourse Theatre, Chatswood. SYNCOPATION by Allan Knee, an American text, opened on Tuesday night at the new Concourse Theatre in Chatswood (great space). It was this production’s 41st venue on a long and extensive tour over the last five months. It moves on to Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, Wollongong, next week and finishes (I think) out at the Riverside Theatre complex at Parramatta the week after. I reckon it is worth making an effort to see. SYNCOPATION is a two-hander, two act play. It is…

Keith Bain, photo by Stuart Campbell Keith Bain passed on on Wednesday, 4th of July, 2012. Keith Bain was modest and quietly, hugely influential in the formation of the Australian traditions in the performing arts. Keith, not alone, a much loved National Treasure that only those in the know knew how great he was. Keith Bain the Australian Artists’ role model – without whom, many of us would have been a very different, and probably lesser human being. I can , definitely, say that about myself. I think I first met Keith Bain at Doris Fitton’s classes for actors at…

  G.Bod Theatre in association with NIDA Parade Theatres presents SHALLOW SLUMBER by Chris Lee in the NIDA Parade Studio. SHALLOW SLUMBER is a small two-hander by Irish playwright (lives in London), Chris Lee. It concerns the relationship between a Social Worker, Moira (Rebecca Johnston) and a mother, Dawn (Catherine Terracini). Mr Lee, himself a social worker, has written over 30 plays and sees theatre as a source for social change. SHALLOW SLUMBER was written in response to a case of a child death and the subsequent press reaction to the role of the social worker. Mr Lee set out…