Year: 2019

Three years in the making (not very long, really) Opera Australia (OA) commissioned a new work with Music by Australian Composer, Elena Kats-Chernin, with a Libretto by Australian Playwright, Justin Fleming, focusing on the life of an iconic Australian painter, Brett Whitely. Whitely, in life, was a controversial figure. He is, still, a controversial figure. His art however, has grown more and more powerful as time as moved on. Born in 1932, he died young at the age of 53. The death as a result of a drug overdose. Whitely had become in 1985 an incurable addict. The Opera Australia…

This production, of A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, by Iain Sinclair was first presented at the Old Fitz Theatre in Woolloomooloo, in 2017. There has been some major casting changes with Anthony Gooley now playing Eddie Carbone and Scott Lee essaying the antagonist, Rodolfo. Otherwise, Giles Gartrell-Miles (Louis), David Lynch (Alfieri) David Soncin (Marco) Zoe Terakes (Catherine) and Janine Watson (Beatrice), are re-creating their original contributions. Written By Arthur Miller, originally as part of a double-bill programer (A MONTH OF TWO MONDAY’S, the other half), in 1955, it was revised into the form that we see here at the Ensemble…

THE TORRENTS, is an Australian play written by Oriel Gray. It was the joint winner of a prestigious playwriting award from the Playwright Advisory Board (PAB) in 1955, sharing with SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL, by Ray Lawler. The Lawler play began a rich Australian production history in 1955 that took it onto the National and International stages: London, New York, and, still appears regularly today as part of the Australian Theatre Companies repertoire. On the other hand, Ms Gray’s play was almost entirely neglected, forgotten, and did not receive a professional stage production until 1996 in Adelaide. Although, there…

OMAR AND DAWN, is a new Australian play by James Elazzi. Dawn (Maggie Blinco) is an 80 year old widow, and following the death of her son, is living alone in a three bedroom home, who has made it her civic duty to foster care young adults living under stress. It gives her a life challenge. She has a brother, Darren (Lex Marinos) who runs a garage and feels that Dawn ought to consider moving into care herself. Her latest responsibility is Omar (Antony Makhlouf), a young seventeen year old man of Lebanese/Australian and Muslim background from a broken family,…

ANNA BOLENA, is an Italian opera written in 1830, by Gaetano Donizetti, using the court of Henry VIII and his forcing of divorce from his second wife Anne Boleyn and the courting of his third wife Jane Seymour as the spine of the narrative. There is very little historical nuance to this libretto by Felice Romain but a great deal of dramatic confabulation to engender as much drama as possible to allow the creation of great dramatic music from orchestra and singers. Solo, duet and other figurations of ensemble, backed by the presence and usage of a large chorus and…

THINGS I KNOW TO BE TRUE, has gathered a critical and word-of-mouth reputation. Such, that I was urged to see the play. I did last Friday night. Afterwards, I was just kind of angry, angry that such a great piece of writing had been so bowdlerised in production. Andrew Bovell’s play, for me, Australia’s leading playwright, is a wonderfully perceptive and astringent overview of the Australian Family and the different readings a six unit family have in practising and understanding what Love is within the spread and influence of relentless Time. Dad, Bob (Tony Martin) and mum, Fran (Helen Thomson)…