Year: 2016

Photo by Hugo Glendinning Fiery Angel and Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company present The Tricycle Theatre Production of RED VELVET, by Lolita Chakrabarti, at The Garrick, West End, London, UK. RED VELVET is a new play by Lolita Chakrabarti that has already had a season in London at the Tricycle Theatre in 2012 (2014) and later at St Anne’s Warehouse in Brooklyn in 2014. Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company has included the production Directed by Indhu Rabasingham and starring Adrian Lester into their season of plays. The play tells of part of the career of an African/American actor, Ira Aldridge, in the…

Photo by Alastair Muir Robert Fox, Matthew Byam Shaw for Playful Productions and Royal Court Theatre Productions present, the Royal Court production of HANGMEN, by Martin McDonagh, at the Wyndham’s Theatre, in the West End, London, U.K. (closes 5 March) HANGMAN, by Martin McDonagh, has transferred from the Royal Court Theatre for a limited season at the Wyndham’s Theatre in London’s West End.  It has been Directed by Matthew Dunster. It has been some time since we have seen a new play from Mr McDonagh. His last play was A BEHANDING IN SPOKANE, seen on Broadway in 2010. He seemed…

Photo by Andre Vasquez Brevity Theatre and Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival presents, SPACE CATS – an Intergalactic Feline Musical, by Samantha Young, at The Old 505 Theatre, Eliza St. Newtown. SPACE CATS – an Intergalactic Feline Musical at the Old 505 Theatre in Newtown has been Written and Directed by, and co-stars, Samantha Young. It begins in Russia in 1957 with the launching of the first dog, Laika (Graeme Mcrae), into space. This ‘rocket’ however, unlike the real satellite of history, crash lands onto a planet made up of 4 cats and many, many glitter balls. There is…

Photo by Brett Boardman Griffin Theatre Company presents The World Premiere of LADIES DAY, by Alana Valentine, in the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. 5 Feb – 26 March. So, when LADIES DAY, by Alana Valentine, concluded the other evening, at the Griffin, my guest and I discussed: “What was the play about?” Says the Director, Darren Yap: LADIES DAY is an important, honest and confronting play. It’s not only an intelligent piece about people living on the margins who don’t often get a chance  to tell their stories, but it also hits you in the gut. For me the…

National Theatre, in a co-production with Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester presents, HUSBANDS AND SONS, by D.H. Lawrence, adapted by Ben Power, in the Dorfman Theatre, at the National Theatre, London. U.K. D.H. Lawrence was born in 1885 in Eastwood, near Nottingham, the fourth child of five children of coalminer Arthur and his wife Lydia. He died at the age of 44, in 1930. He is most celebrated for his novel writing which include famously: SONS AND LOVERS (1913), THE RAINBOW (1915), WOMEN IN LOVE (1920), KANGAROO (1923), LADY CHATTERERLEY’S LOVER (1928). But besides ten collections of poetry and seven collections…

Photo by Manuel Harlan The Old Vic presents THE MASTER BUILDER, by Henrik Ibsen. A new adaptation by David Hare, at The Old Vic, London, U.K. 23 Jan – 19 March, 2016. According to the Old Vic program notes, by Nick Curtis, on this production of Henrik Ibsen’s THE MASTER BUILDER: Today, (Ibsen) is the second most performed playwright in the world, after Shakespeare, and seen as the inheritor to Shakespeare’s mantle as a poetic explorer of the human condition. THE MASTER BUILDER is a play not often seen in Australia. Henrik Ibsen has, for me, three distinct phases in…