Month: March 2014

  Photo by Brett Monaghan James Waites, known to me as Jim, left us on the 12th February, 2014. He swam out to sea at Coogee Beach. Jim had been struggling with ill health for some years. Jim was an Arts Journalist, famous, to me, for his Theatre criticism. We had met way back in the early 1980’s when I asked him, on behalf of John Clark and Elizabeth Butcher, to teach a class for young writers at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), using Ibsen’s HEDDA GABLER as a model. He did. We then crossed paths in many…

  photograph by Gez Xavier Mansfield UNLIKELY Productions presents STOP KISS by Diana Son at atyp Wharf 4, Hickson Rd. Walsh Bay. STOP KISS (1998), written by Diana Son is set in New York. The play is principally Callie’s story (Olivia Stambouliah) and we watch her negotiate her identity, and, ultimately, her commitment to her humanity. She is a New Yorker working as a News Traffic Reporter for a television company. She has a boyfriend, George (Aaron Tsindos). Sara (Gabrielle Scawthorn), has recently moved to New York from St Louis, after a seven year relationship, her one and only, with…

  Photo by by Ellis Parrinder Belvoir presents, ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID’S CITY by Michael Gow, in the Upstairs Theatre, at the Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills. ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID’S CITY by Michael Gow is having its world premiere at the Belvoir St Theatre. Upstairs, not Downstairs, for this new work. It is, indeed, a welcome experience to have a new Australian play without any of the obvious trappings, or artistic reputation, of past writers wreathing its conception and promise, on stage, at Belvoir (the usual ‘game’ is coming back, it seems, from what one has read, with the Simon…

  Photography by Katy Green Loughrey Produced by 3 Quacks in association with Sydney Independent Theatre Company, TIDY TOWN OF THE YEAR, by Andy Leonard, Sarah Hodgetts and Victoria Greiner at the Old Fitzroy Theatre, Woolloomooloo. Three ‘kids’ (forgive me, if inappropriate) in the ‘kitchen’ of playmaking, at the Old Fitzroy Theatre: Andy Leonard, Sarah Hodgetts and Victoria Greiner, have produced, written, and are performing, in TIDY TOWN OF THE YEAR. They have taken on the fearsome genre of “black comedy”, even more daringly, “black farce.” Town rivalry, petty jealousies, cruel behaviour, mistaken identities, revenge tactics, murder, blood, a bulky…

  Photo by Jamie Williams BLACK DIGGERS by Tom Wright presented by Sydney Festival in association with The Balnaves Foundation. A Queensland Theatre Company and Sydney Festival Production, in the Drama Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House. I saw BLACK DIGGERS almost two months ago as part of the Sydney Festival. I was so distressed with what I experienced in the Drama Theatre, and yet have such great commitment to the ideals of the project, that how to write about it in a constructive manner became a burdensome issue for me. Now, having seen THE LONG WAY HOME at the…

  Photo by Lisa Tomasetti Sydney Theatre Company and The Australian Defence Force present THE LONG WAY HOME by Daniel Keene at the Sydney Theatre. “July 2011. I am sitting in a small room in a special wing of a private hospital in Melbourne. It’s a psychiatric ward. The nurses tell me when to shower and when to eat and they watch me as I take my medication. In the corridor a bedraggled woman, a fellow patient, tells me casually that she likes to cut herself–I’ve no idea how to respond. I’m told I’ll be here for a week. My overwhelming…