Year: 2019

In Shakespeare’s ROMEO AND JULIET, Romeo, a son of the Montague’s has been wandering in the woods alone, “[w]ith tears, augmenting the fresh morning’s dew/ Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs.” All, he thinks, for his love of Rosaline. Later, that evening he breaks into a party held at her cousin’s Juliet’s home to be close to his Rosaline – both women, daughters of the enemy family of Verona, the Capulets. On seeing Juliet, Romeo, instantly, falls in love with her and the prescient admonition – chiding – that Romeo’s priestly mentor, Friar Laurence has given him…

Writer, Anchuli Felicia King, and Director, Bonita de Wit, two young Australians, both found themselves studying in the Performance Arts Program at Columbia University in New York (not that they hadn’t tried to find a place in Australian schools to do just that – their resourcefulness in finding the alternative way to training seems to have forged some strong ‘gifts’, despite, I imagine, the great expense). Their respective American friends at school made sure they became acquainted and diffidently, at first, i’ve been told, they did. Great! One result is SLAUGHTERHOUSE, a new play by Ms King which is being…

  KURIOS: Cabinet of Curiosities, is a work from the juggernaut that is Cirque Du Soleil, a Canadian Company that has an astonishing network of creations performing all around the world.This work has been Created and Directed by Michel Laprise. KURIOS, is a return to form for this company. The show before last was not so hot – the speciality acts great, the story fluffing it up, boring. Kurios is set in the late Nineteenth century (one supposes) and all the Design elements are of an extraordinary standard – a s steam-punk visual influence. Set (Stephane Roy) and Costume (Phillipe…

THE ANGRY BRIGADE, is a British play by James Graham. It is a two act play. The Angry Brigade are a collective, a far left terrorist group, active in the late 60’s. They were responsible for a series of 25 bombings. Their bombs caused mainly property damage, no deaths and only one minor injury. It caused the British Government, in 1971, to set up a specialist group – The Bomb Squad – within the Metropolitan Police to investigate these crimes of terror. It led to the development of a new investigative methodology to detect and arrest these terrorists of the…

THE REAL THING, is a play by Tom Stoppard, from the approximate middle period of his output – 1982. Prior to this it was the intellectual brilliance of his word play and juggling of various viewpoints that gave his work the effervescence of the best cold champagne that money could buy. Exhilarating nights in the theatre that made one feel smarter and wittier than one had suspected, known, of oneself ever being: ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD (1968); JUMPERS (1972); TRAVESTIES (1976). THE REAL THING, had all the wit as usual, but at its centre it had, as well, a…

This is a revival production of SPLINTER, by Australian writer, Hilary Bell. It was first produced by The Sydney Theatre Company (STC), in 2012. Man (Simon Gleeson) and Woman (Lucy Bell), husband and wife, have just had their daughter Laura returned to them. She had been absent for nine months. No-one knows where she has been or what has happened. The play begins in a mood of wonder and excitement. Also, disbelief. Are they laughing or crying? Is it a dream? Is it real? Laura has not spoken. She is an enigma. In the original production at the STC Laura,…