Year: 2014

  Ensemble Theatre presents, BLUE/ORANGE, by Joe Penhall at the Ensemble Theatre, Kirribillli, 24th October to late November. BLUE/ORANGE written by Joe Penhall, was first produced at the Royal Court Theatre, in London, in 2000. The play was the winner of the Evening Standard Best Play Award, the Olivier Award for Best Play 2001 and the Critics’ Circle Award for Best New Play 2000. British born with an Australian education, Mr Penhall began his working life as a social worker, then journalist. He now lives in London. His first play was SOME VOICES IN 1994, his recent theatre works were…

Sydney Theatre Company (STC) and Bank Of America, Merrill Lynch present, The Wharf Revue 2014: OPEN FOR BUSINESS, created and written by Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Philip Scott, at Wharf 1, Hickson Rd. Walsh Bay. 20 Oct – 20 Dec. The Wharf Revue has become a staple, stalwart, of the Sydney Theatre Company (STC), end of year seasons. They must make a box office boon! Boom?! How many has it been? 14 or 15? 15, I think. I haven’t seen one for years. OPEN FOR BUSINESS is what I remember the Wharf Revue’s to be. Some awfully talented artists,…

  THE ZOO STORY, by Edward Albee, is a one act play, written in 1959, and was first performed in Berlin. It was Mr Albee’s first, successful play. Since, it has become a staple in theatre repertoires around the world. Hearing it again, the other afternoon, at the Tap Gallery, was a pleasure, a treasure of the assurances that great writing can give to the dilemma of the existential question, that is often posed, whether, consciously or not, by all of us, “Is life worthwhile? To be, or not to be?” The exhilaration that I felt during, and after the…

Photo by by Brett Boardman Belvoir presents IS THIS THING ON? by Zoe Coombs Marr, in the Downstairs Theatre, Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills, 2 Oct – 2 Nov. IS THIS THING ON? by Zoe Coombs Marr is a new Australian play. It tells the story of a stand-up comedian, Brianna, over the arc of her career. The writer’s conceit is to have five actors: Madeline Benson, Genevieve Giuffre, Fiona Press, Susan Prior and Nat Randall, play at different points in that career, the one comedian. Set in a pub space, with an uncomfortably realistic detailed design (Ralph Myers) that includes…

Photograph by Lucy Parakhina Umhappen presents KILL THE PM by Fregmonto Stokes, at the Old 505 Theatre. Hibernian House, Level 5, 342 Elizabeth St., Surry Hills, October 8 – 26. KILL THE PM, a new Australian play. Four young people, Rowan (Nicholas Hiatt), Flick (Zoe Jensen), Pete (Michael McStay) and Naomi (Lily Newbury-Freeman), meet in an apartment overlooking a busy traffic way, along which the Prime Minister will travel, preparing for a planned assassination. There are fetid discussions reflecting the various philosophical and political standpoints of each, and an interaction between all four that seems to be undermining the cohesion…

The Belvoir production of Tennessee William’s THE GLASS MENAGERIE, is the third major production of that play that I have seen in the last four years. This production, unusual to the recent Belvoir general aesthetics – has stayed faithfully to the text as written, using even the American dialect. Eamon Flack, an Associate Director of the Belvoir, last year Directed ANGELS IN AMERICA and there, too, respected the writer’s work, and the audience’s intelligence, to the production’s and play’s ultimate great acclaim. This, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, is an Australian production of a great American classic, without re-writes (STRANGE INTERLUDE), or edits…