Month: May 2019

I first knew of William Yang when he was Willie Young and part of the cast of the iconic original production of THE LEGEND OF KING O’MALLEY, written by Michael Boddy and Bob Ellis, in 1970, and recently re-staged at the Seymour Centre in 2014. Willie was part of the troupe that created, under the Direction of John Bell, as an an actor/singer/musician. Later, I remember him as part of the Rex Cramphorn Company in his Studio experiments on some of the Classical repertoire. Willie was never an actor really. Then, other than seeing photographs of him at dinners at…

Part way through Act One of the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Tennessee Williams, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, Directed by Kip Williams (and it was probably only twenty minutes or so into the text), I knew that I was having an experience in the theatre that was what I recognise as an experience of Grand Theatre. Watching this production of Kip Williams was the equivalent to me of what I have often experienced in the three hour or more in a Wagner Opera experience – a “Grand Olde Opry” experience, one that through its writing and the endurance…

SALOME, an old Old Testament, bible story. SALOME, a sensational poem/play, in French, originally, by Oscar Wilde from 1891 – banned, originally, across most of Europe. SALOME, an outrageously daring composition and adaptation by Richard Strauss written in 1905. Banned, but appreciated and highly lauded, gradually, through the operatic world. SALOME, a contemporary production by the brilliant Gale Edwards, for the what I imagine should be an eternally grateful Opera Australia, that is as outrageous in its intellectual and physical conception and execution, placing this female-‘revenge’ work undeniably in our contemporary era of the ‘revolutionary’ contemplation of the ‘gender bubble’…