Year: 2013

Photo by Brett Boardman BELVOIR presents THIS HEAVEN by Nakkiah Lui In the Downstairs Theatre, Belvoir St, Surry Hills. THIS HEAVEN is a small work (70 minutes) with a big emotional bang from a new voice. The new voice is Nakkiah Lui who is a member of the Dhurag community of Western Sydney – having only the week before seen THE SECRET RIVER at The Sydney Theatre – this, for me, was a stunning co-incidence in the arc of two centuries of tragedy. She is currently finishing her Arts/Laws at the University of NEW SOUTH WALES and was an associate playwright at…

Photo by Brett Boardman GRIFFIN THEATRE COMPANY presents the World Premiere of DREAMS IN WHITE by Duncan Graham at the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. DREAMS IN WHITE by Duncan Graham is directed confidently by Tanya Goldberg. Her cast comprising Lucy Bell, Mandy McElhinney, Andrew McFarlane, Steve Rodgers in multiple roles and Sara West in a solo requirement, as the young daughter, give performances of great commitment and skill, switching from one persona to another without hesitation, from demand to demand made by the writing. The Design by Teresa Negroponte, of a charcoal grey floor and walls with white opaque…

  The Cafe Debris Company in association with Comedy On The Edge presents Brent Thorpe in TOO OLD FOR TV at the LYBRARY (formerly the Shannon Hotel), Abercrombie Street, Chippendale. Brent Thorpe in blue tee shirt, jeans and red sneakers, nicely cut hair and scrubbed face – just as it should be, having survived though his times – stands in front of the microphone stand and begins, a monologue, a look back at some of the main events of his Gay life with a nostalgic recollection of people and gay geographical locations. It is a lesson in Lost Gay Sydney…

Photo by Bob Seary Another Bright Idea Productions present the Australian premiere of David Earle’s POSTNUPTIALS in the Parade Playhouse at the NIDA Theatre complex, Kensington. POSTNUPTIALS by David Earle is in genre a comic farce. It however has a social agenda attached: “The play explores thematic concerns of gay marriage, heterosexual infidelity, and an individual’s quest to challenge parental conditioning, laid down in childhood that at times may inhibit an adult’s own choices in life, and perhaps the meeting of true minds and hearts in search for love” – Director’s notes. David Earle is an American (West Coast) writer. POSTNUPTIALS,…

I have not read PETER PAN in any of the manifestations, by J.B. Barrie, that Tommy Murphy, the present adaptor of this Belvoir production tells us learnedly about, in the program notes. I have not even seen the Walt Disney animated adaptation. I only know it from little snippets on the old Walt Disney show of my growing up, on Sunday nights at 6.30 on Channel 9, watching it in our fibro housing commission in North Ryde. I remember Peter in a costume like Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood, with hands akimbo on his hips, and Captain Hook with a hook…

  NEW THEATRE present MILKMILKLEMONADE by Joshua Conkel at the New Theatre, Newtown. MILKMILKLEMONADE a play by Joshua Conkel concerns, in essence, the coming-of-age of two young boys, Emory (Mark Dessaix) and Elliot (Kieran Foster) living in the boon-docks of somewhere in America, who are gay and are not sure what that is. The play is set on a chicken farm. It is run by Nanna (Peter Nettell) – impersonated here as a lady with all the visual ‘drag’ qualities of kitchy butch: flamboyantly grotesque trappings of wig, make up and costume, who has a certain pragmatic charm and direct…