Year: 2016

Photo by Prudence Upton Sydney Theatre Company presents DISGRACED, by Ayad Akhtar, in Wharf 1, at the Sydney Theatre Company (STC), Hickson Rd.,Walsh Bay, 16 April – 4 June, 2016. DISGRACED is the 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning play by Ayad Akhtar. DISGRACED, is the typical well made American play that I talked about in my Diary entry about THE WHALE. A small cast of five in a single setting with a subtly disguised exposition that introduces the protagonists with their differences and backgrounds. Emily (Sophie Ross), a middle aged white woman, a practising, ambitious ‘figurative’ artist – painter, politically naive…

We sit in the cavernous Bay 17 and face a huge black-curtained void. When the performance commences we are confronted, quite closely, with a suited figure, in a specific, intimate kind of light, in a wide-armed gesture standing on a raised, small mirrored-floor oblong. The figure (Luke Mullins), with a visible face-microphone assisting, begins in an intimate sotto voce (with pronounced sibilant ‘ss’s’), a 50 minute conversation with his ‘self’. This nameless figure reveals his job as that of a body double for a film actor, Kane – an actor of second/third tier suspense thrillers, adventures e.g. “Briefcase Bomb 2”…

  Sydney Theatre Company presents Noel Coward’s HAY FEVER, in the Drama Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House, 11 April – 21 May, 2016. Noel Coward, at the age of 25, wrote and starred in THE VORTEX, opening in December in 1924, which settled into a long London run. Sheridan Morley tells us in his biography of Noel Coward, A TALENT TO AMUSE: On the principle that success breeds other successes, once THE VORTEX was an established hit both HAY FEVER and FALLEN ANGELS, which had previously been turned down by every management in London, went into rapid production; by…

Ensemble Theatre presents, GOOD PEOPLE, by David Lindsay-Abaire, at the Ensemble Theatre, Kirribilli. 7 April – 21 May, 2016. GOOD PEOPLE, by David Lindsay-Abaire was first performed in 2013 for the Manhattan Theatre Club, at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, on Broadway, New York and was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, The Horton Foote Prize, The Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, and two Tony nominations. It follows on from his previous play RABBIT HOLE, which among other prizes won the Pulitzer Prize. GOOD PEOPLE sustains the quality of writing exhibited in his other…

  Seymour Centre presents, Squabbalogic Independent Music Theatre’s Production of THE ORIGINAL GREASE, Book, Music and Lyrics, by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, in the Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre, City Rd. Chippendale, April 6 – May 7, 2016. THE ORIGINAL GREASE is a return, from the Broadway and 1978 film “bubble-gum” version of GREASE, to the roots of the original invention of the writers, Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Its reconstruction was made in 2010 via a collaboration with PJ Papparelli of the American Theatre Company in Chicago and GREASE author Jim Jacobs. Director, Jay James-Moody writes in the program, that…

Photo by Heidrun Lohr Monkey Baa presents, THE PEASANT PRINCE, by Eva Di Cesare, Sandie Eldridge and Tim McGarry, based on the children’s book, by Li Cunxin, illustrated by Anne Spudvilas, at the Lendlease Darling Quarter Theatre, Darling Harbour, 9-20 April. THE PEASANT PRINCE, is an adaptation, in book form of Li Cunxin’s MAO’S LAST DANCER, for children, and has served as the inspiration for the Monkey Baa Theatre Company to bring to life on the stage. It is a rudimentary ‘rags to riches’ story, of a kind of ‘fairytale’ journey of a young Chinese boy from a backwoods Chinese…