Year: 2017

Some Company and Oleg Pupovac in association with bAKEHOUSE present AMERICAN BEAUTY SHOP, by Dana Lynn Formby, in the Kings Cross Theatre (KXT), at the Kings Cross Hotel. August 31 – September 16. AMERICAN BEAUTY SHOP, is an American play, by Dana Lynn Formby, written 2015. It begins in the dark with a radio news bulletin reporting on the culpability of the Lehman Brothers and the resultant Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008. We are then brought to Cortez, Colorado, into the basement Beauty Shop belonging to Sue (Amanda Stephens Lee), where she’s re-located from main street, as a result…

The Sydney Theatre Company and Commonwealth Bank present a Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company production of THE FATHER, by Florian Zeller, translated by Christopher Hampton. August 24 – October 21. THE FATHER, is a play written in 2012, by French playwright and novelist, Florian Zeller. It won the Moliere Award for Best Play in 2016 and has had an international life of some reputation. It has been translated into English, by Christopher Hampton – his play, LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES (1985) being his best remembered work. From the Program notes from the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) the synopsis: Andre…

The Ensemble Theatre presents LIP SERVICE, by John Misto, at the Ensemble Theatre, Kirribilli. 17 August – 30 September. Photo by Prudence Upton LIP SERVICE, is a new Australian play, that premiered in a separate production in London, earlier this year, with the title: MADAME RUBINSTEIN with the indomitable Miriam Margolyes, as Rubinstein and Frances Barber, as Elizabeth Arden. In Kirribilli, at the Ensemble we have Amanda Muggelton playing Madame Rubinstein, and it is a performance that I loved a lot. A performance of comic skill and emotional truth, when required, bringing to bear a technical bravura from an actor…

Lume Productions presents THE GULF, by Audrey Cefaly, at the FLOW Warehouse, 59 Denison St., Camperdown. 24 August – 5 September. THE GULF, is by a young American (Southern) writer, Audrey Cefaly. It first appeared in 2016, and has two female characters – intimates – drifting in a boat in the Alabama Delta, part of the Gulf of Mexico, fishing and confronting the coming changes in their lives. Betty (Brenna Harding) is preparing to go to college and leaving town, while Kendra (Diana Popovska) from a different class (background) ponders her own more simple needs to have a future. The…

Theatre Eccentrique with the Old 505 presents the Australian Premiere of I’D RATHER GOYA ROBBED ME OF MY SLEEP THAN SOME OTHER SON OF A BITCH, by Rodrigo Garcia, at the Old 505 Theatre, Eliza St, Newtown. 22 August – 2 September. I’D RATHER GOYA ROBBED ME OF MY SLEEP THAN SOME OTHER SON OF A BITCH, is a fifty minute monologue by Argentinian-Spanish artist, Rodrigo Garcia, in a translation commissioned by Cartwright Productions. Directed by Anna Jahjah, Gerry Sont gives us a monologue from a dissolute father who attempts to re-direct his two young sons (the youngest is a…

Opera Australia present PARSIFAL, an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner, Libretto by the composer, in the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House. August 9,12 (matinee), 14 August. Leading the Opera Australia Orchestra, Pinchas Steinberg, as Conductor, harnessed an impressive cast of performers to give a concert version of this work of real beauty. Jonas Kaufmann sensitively (carefully) sang the leading role of Parsifal, supported by Michelle De Young, as Kundry; supported by an impressively powerful Kwangchul Youn, as Gurnemantz; Michael Honeyman, as Amfortas; and Warwick Fyfe, as Kilngsor (his physical inhabiting of the character and his function…