Month: January 2015

The Unspoken Word is ‘Joe’ : Trailer 2015 from MKA – Theatre of New Writing on Vimeo. MKA: Theatre of New Writing and Griffin Independent present, THE UNSPOKEN WORD IS ‘JOE’, by Zoey Dawson, at the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross, 21 Jan – 7 Feb. Climate Change: True or False. The secrets surrounding our Manus Island Refugees. ICAC and the ‘bottomless’ pits of local and state government corruption. Confidence in the Australian Prime Minister and his Government, plummets. Cuts to Australian pensioners welfare. The pressures to free-market our Australian Universities and Education. Are Corporations really our Governmental law makers?…

Photograph by Marnya Rothe Red Line Productions presents MASTERCLASS, written and performed by Charlie Garber and Gareth Davies at the Old Fitz Theatre, Woolloomooloo. 14 Jan -31 Jan. MASTERCLASS at the Old Fitz, devised, written and performed by Charlie Garber and Gareth Davies, begins with two men coming onto an empty stage and talking. Apparently, having worked together in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM and AS YOU LIKE IT at Belvoir, and though given some leeway to interact ‘creatively’ together by Director, Eamon Flack, these two men felt somewhat ‘hampered’ by the requirements of someone else’s text (Shakespeare) and decided that they wanted to…

ROUND UP OF MY THEATRE DIARY – 2014. According to my Theatre Diary, I attended some 119 performances. I, actually saw a few more but did not write them up. I am in the midst of writing up the Sydney Theatre Company CYRANO, but as of this minute, still struggling – will do so, soon though. I saw some 54 new Australian plays this year. Few, I noted, with a cast of more than six-eight actors. Most, the majority, with only a cast of TWO. What is this with the major subsidised companies and their ‘gate-keeping’ curation of the Australian…

Bell Shakespeare presents, HENRY V, in the Playhouse, at the Sydney Opera House, 21 Oct – 14 Nov, 2014. Some children and their teachers are trapped in a classroom/bunker in London during the German Blitzreig of World War Two. The teachers provide the children the text of HENRY V, by William Shakespeare, to read and rehearse in an improvised manner, to distract them from the surrounding chaos. With a concussive Sound Design (Composer and Sound Design, Steve Francis), and Lighting Design (Sian James-Holland), an atmosphere of alarm outside the room brings a reality of war to the environment. Anne Gardiner…

Performance Space presents FALLING WOMAN, Created by Alice Osborne and Halcyon Macleod, at Carriageworks, Track 8. 26 – 29 November, 2014. FALLING WOMAN is a new Australian play with an idea initiated, devised and performed by Alice Osborne, written and directed by Halcyon Macleod. The text is a voiceover of, for most of the time, a highly poetic odyssey – recently, Ms Macleod’s work at Campbelltown Arts Centre: MANTLE, also featured this kind of radio-play conceit (think Radio National’s, Poetica) – however, in this case it features a disembodied voice with, also, live microphone interpolations from The Woman (Alice Osborne),…

Sydney Symphony Orchestra present ENIGMA VARIATIONS and ZIMMERMAN PLAYS SIBELIUS, in the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House, December 3, 5, 6, 2014. Shamefully, I have not gone to any concert this year with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. But the Variations on an Original Theme, Op.36 [Enigma], by Edward Elgar (1899) has always been an amusing favourite, so off I went, further ‘bribed’ by the opportunity to hear Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20 by Benjamin Britten (1941), and the Finnish Violinist, Frank Peter Zimmermann, play the Violin Concerto in D minor, Op.47 (1904), by Jean Sibelius. All conducted by…