Year: 2019

AMERICAN PSYCHO – The Musical, is an adaptation of the ‘infamous’ novel by Bret Easton Ellis of 1991. It is a satiric observation and skewering of the American values of the 1980’s in which the (anti-) hero, Patrick Bateman, a corporate aspirant, among many other idiosyncrasies, regards Donald Trump as a figure of admiration. It is an ironic note that we in 2019, 28 years later, are engaged with ‘a media-saturated society where a narcissistic, greedy misogynist with severe status anxiety can become the leader of the free world’. Donald Trump is a prescient mentor, indeed, for the Musical’s hero…

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’…

EVERY BRILLIANT THING, is a one person play – at Belvoir it is played by Kate Mulvany; on its Riverside season, which follows, it will be played by Steve Rodgers. So a gender fluid role. At the age of seven our actor is told that her/his mother is in hospital. Concerned, she is told by her dad that ‘mum’ has found life difficult to experience. So, in an act of loving support, our little girl begins a list of Every Beautiful Things, for her mum: ‘Ice cream’, is number one on the list. As the play proceeds, the list grows…

WYNGARDE! A CELEBRATION and QUEEN BETTE are two one act monologues, Devised by Director Peter Mountford and the two actors, Garth Holcombe and Jeanette Cronin, staged as part of the Mardi Gras Festival. QUEEN BETTE has been presented earlier in 2015. WYNGARDE! A CELEBRATION, premiered as part of the Sydney Fringe last September. It is so interesting to see these two works together and observe the gifted ‘sleight-of-hand’ that Mr Mountford brings to both the works, as a Writer and a Director. Seen individually, the skill of the artist might not be really noticed, seen as a pair, his skill…