Year: 2015

  Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) presents REFLECTIONS ON GALLIPOLI, at Sydney City Rectal Hall Angel Place. One was brought to deep reflective emotions, that culminated in tears, by a programme of music, classical and folk, with words and images in the Angel Place Recital Hall and, I daresay, one will have to look hard and long for a memorial to the tragic action of Gallipoli – this year, 2015, it’s Centenary year of remembrance –  that could reach to such heights of  integrity, dignity and human feeling and thought, than this concert brought to us by the Australian Chamber Orchestra…

  Darlinghurst Theatre Company presents a Milk Crate Theatre Production, the World Premiere of THIS HOUSE IS MINE, by Maree Freeman at the Eternity Playhouse. THIS HOUSE IS MINE, by Maree Freeman, is new Australian work. Ms Freeman is CEO/Artistic Director of Milk Crate Theatre, Playwright and producer of THIS HOUSE IS MINE. From her notes in the program: Milk Crate Theatre works by, with and for our community of artists who have experienced homelessness and social marginalisation. … it is vitally important to acknowledge the community context from which this work springs. The process of creating THIS HOUSE IS…

New Theatre presents, WHEN THE RIAN STOPS FALLING, by Andrew Bovell, at the New Theatre, King St., Newtown. 17 March – 18 April, 2015. This production of Andrew Bovell’s WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING, at the New Theatre left me in a gratified mood of semi-euphoria. I saw the original Brink Theatre production in the Drama Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House, in 2009, and rated it has one of the great experiences of new Australian writing I had had for a long time. Seeing the New Theatre’s more modest production does not diminish that memory in any way, and…

  Opera Australia present FAUST, an Opera in five acts by Charles-Francois Gounod. Libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carre, after Michel Carre’s FAUST ET MARGUERITE (1850) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s FAUST, Part 1. In the Joan Sutherland Theatre at the Sydney Opera House. I have not, of late, attended Opera Australia (OA). The choice of work presented, by that company, seems to be repetitive with not enough variety of repertoire, or interesting singers, to attract me, considering the cost outlay. The last live opera I attended was in New York, where I attended a performance of Shostakovitch’s THE…

Photo by Tim Levy Red Lines Productions present, FREAK WINDS, by Marshall Napier, at the Old Fitzroy Theatre, Woolloomooloo, March 11 -29. FREAK WINDS by Marshall Napier is having a revival production at the Old Fitz, where it was first presented in 1999. Mr Napier has written it, Directed it and Starred in it, again. An insurance salesman, Harry Crumb (Ben O’Toole) is ‘blitzing’ the district for his company: Argyle, selling a new product to the local denizens. A freak wind blows Harry to the apartment-house of Ernest (Marshall Napier), seeking shelter, after his car has been crushed by an…

Photo by Brett Boardman Griffin Theatre Company presents CARESS/ACHE by Suzie Miller at the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross, Sydney, 27 February – 11 April. CARESS/ACHE is a new Australian play by Suzie Miller that has had a, relatively, long gestation. Ms Miller thanks the National Theatre in London for a studio development and the Griffin Theatre Company, and mentions Marion Potts, Liam Steele Choreographer and to Steven Hoggett, and Scott Graham (both of Frantic Assembly UK), Caleb Lewis, and Camilla Rountree for dramaturgy. In her own words Ms Miller tells us: CARESS/ACHE is a work that has been many…