Month: May 2016

  Sport For Jove presents THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, by William Shakespeare, in the Riverside Theatre, Riverside, Parramatta. 5-7 May. A season at the Seymour Centre, follows on 19-28 May. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW is one of the plays of Shakespeare, that can find itself, often, the centre of deep contemporary cultural-political debate, controversy. Says Norrie Epstein in his THE FRIENDLY SHAKESPEARE [1]: The play’s misogyny, whether Shakespeare’s or Petruchio’s (In the original play the Katherine-Petruchio story is the illusion created for a drunken character called Sly, by some callous young noblemen), has caused something of a problem…

  A Tasmania Performs production, co-presented by Tasmania Performs and Griffin Theatre Company, AS WE FORGIVE, by Tom Holloway, in the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. May 12 – 21. AS WE FORGIVE, by Tom Holloway, presents three monologues: Vengeance, Hatred, Forgiveness. “Three Morality Plays For an Amoral Age” performed by the one actor, Robert Jarman. It is elegantly Directed by Julian Meyrick, employing a co-design of his own, alongside Jill Munro, featuring a series of visual images that appear on a reddish screen throughout the production – this was the one element that held my attention appreciatively, throughout. A…

Photo by Tracey Schramm Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) present, SPRING AWAKENING – THE MUSICAL, Books and Lyrics by Steven Sater, Music by Duncan Sheik, based on the original play, by Frank Wedekind, at the ATYP Studio, Wharf 4, Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay, 27 April – 14 May. This is the third production of SPRING AWAKENING – The Musical, that I have seen. I saw the original Broadway production at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in 2008, and the, relatively, mis-conceived production by the Sydney Theatre Company in 2010. This production of the musical based, ‘roughly’, on the Frank Wedekind…

Photo by Nick McKinlay bAKEHOUSE Theatre Company presents, an Australian premiere of BLACK JESUS, by Anders Lustgarten, at the Kings Cross Theatre (KXT), in the Kings Cross Hotel, 29 April – 21 May. BLACK JESUS, introduces to the Australian (Sydney) audience, a political/activist writer, Anders Lustgarten. He lives in Britain and was the inaugural winner of the Harold Pinter Prize. His plays have included amongst others: IF YOU DON’T LET US DREAM, WE WON’T LET YOU SLEEP (2013) – concerned with financial capitalism; LAMPEDUSA (2015) – concerned with the refugee/migrant situation in Europe. BLACK JESUS, written in 2013, is set in…

Photo by Amanda James Riversides Theatre presents, National Theatre of Parramatta, with SWALLOW, by Stef Smith, in the Lennox Theatre, Riversides Theatre, Parramatta. 21 – 30 April. SWALLOW, is a work by Scottish writer, Stef Smith. It was presented last year, 2015, at the Edinburgh Festival. It tells of three women: Rebecca (Megan Drury), responding (acting out) in a rage to the desertion by her boy friend to another woman; of Anna (Luisa Hastings Edge), an artist suffering from a breakdown depression who cannot leave her apartment and smashes it in pursuit of creativity; and of Sam (Valerie Berry), in…

  Mad March Hare Theatre Company in association with Red Line Productions present, BELLEVILLE by Amy Herzog, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral St, Wooloomooloo. 20 April – 12 May. BELLEVILLE (2011) is the second play by Amy Herzog that we have seen in Sydney. 4000 Miles, we saw in a production by Anthony Skuse, in May, 2013 (it has just finished a re-rehearsed regional tour). Amy Herzog writes plays observing the details of situation concerning fairly everyday contemporary people. The writing style is part of what I have called “slow theatre” where the action of the play has long…