Month: October 2014

Photo by Michele Aboud Sydney Theatre Company presents A Sydney Theatre Company (STC) and State Theatre Company of South Australia (STCSA) production, KRYPTONITE by Sue Smith, at Wharf 1 Theatre, Hickson Rd. Walsh Bay. 11 September – 18 October. KRYPTONITE, by Sue Smith is a new Australian two-hander, one act play of approximately 90 minutes in length. It is the best new Australian play I have seen this year, maybe, for several years! Sue Smith is an award winning writer, mostly for television, including: ABC tele-movie MABO, ABC miniseries BASTARD BOYS, for SBS, RAN: Remote Area Nurse, which she co-wrote with…

Photo by Pia Johnson Belvoir presents OEDIPUS REX in the Downstairs Theatre, Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills. 21 August – 21 September. It is over a month since I saw this “meditation on the myth of OEDIPUS REX.” We enter the theatre and look at a spare space with some plastic sheeting framed roughly in the back left hand corner to form a covered passage way. The lights black out and we submit to a long, extended silence. Somebody blows in my ear – undermining the artistic intent, perhaps, but taking advantage of the much publicised offer? The lights return and…

Photo by Bob Seary New Theatre presents HARVEST by Richard Bean at the New Theatre, Newtown. 7th October – 8th November. Richard Bean became a playwright late, at 39. Since 1995, when he wrote a libretto for an opera, PARADISE OF FOOLS, he has finished some 23 works for the theatre. He will be a familiar name for those of us who saw the Royal National Theatre touring production of his adaptation of Goldoni’s A SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS: the comically glorious, ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (2011), last year at the Sydney Theatre. This year, 2014, alone, he has written PITCAIRN…

Photo by Kathy Luu Red Line Productions in association with Strange Duck Productions and Sydney Independent Theatre Company (SITCO) present, HOWIE THE ROOKIE, by Mark O’Rowe at the Old Fitzroy Theatre, Woolloomoooloo. 30 September- 25 October. Some of you may remember the tour of the Abbey Theatre at the Drama Theatre, for the Sydney Theatre Company (STC), in 2011, when they presented a play by Mark O’Rowe called, TERMINUS. It consisted of three monologues interwoven, in a performance that was mostly just a spot lit, static stand or sit. People, audiences were in a kind of rapture. HOWIE THE ROOKIE, an…

Photo by Michael Francis Squabbalogic Independent Music Theatre’s production of SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM. Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Conceived and Originally Directed on Broadway by James Lapine at the Reginald Theatre, the Seymour Centre, October 1 – 18. I loved my night at the Squabbalogic latest musical production, SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM, an Australian Premiere Season, at the Reginald Theatre, in the Seymour Centre. This is a homage to the musical genius of the most influential musical theatre artist alive today: Stephen Sondheim – he must be in his mid-eighties, or so, now. Imagine! I always hold Mr Sondheim in the…

Photo by Steven Siewert Riverside Theatres presents Kim Carpenter’s Theatre of Image, MONKEY. JOURNEY TO THE WEST, written by Donna Abela, and Composed by Peter Kennard, at the Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, 2 -11 October. Kim Carpenter’s Theatre of Image is presenting his new work, a version of the 16th Century, three-volume, 1500-page novel, MONKEY. JOURNEY TO THE WEST. The original is attributed to Wu Cheng’en (Ming Dynasty). Arthur Waley, in 1942, published a popular abridged translation in English. It has since been translated again, and seen in many, many stage versions – opera, included, and for film and television. My…