Month: January 2020

ANTHEM, a work commissioned as part of the Melbourne Festival in 2019, represents the reunion of the writers of the 1998 play WHO’S AFRAID OF THE WORKING CLASS? to examine and tell us through story invention of the present state of the nation: Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius, Melissa Reeves and Christos Tsiolkas are the word smiths, whilst Irine Vela provides the musical scoring. Getting together, they write in the program note: We sat around the table and thrashed out our ideas. We argued and yelled and laughed and when we got sick of the sound of our own voices we…

LADY TABOULI, is the latest work from James Elassi. Mr Elassi is a member of a Lebanese Maronite (Christian) family and its culture. All his works, that we have seen in Sydney (OMAR AND DAWN), concern themselves with the struggle of the young male (usually) struggling in the pull, on one hand , between the traditions of his culture and their demanding expectations and, on the other hand, the secret of the forbidden heritage of being a member of the abhorrent LGBTIQI community, as well. Danny (Antony Makhlouf) has been given the responsibility by his sister, Josephine (Nisine Amina) to…

2019 was a challenging year for myself with a health issue intruding on my ability to see as much theatre as I usually do. Of what I did see here is my summary of the year. Griffin Theatre at the SBW Stables in the first part of the year produced some work that was of great import for our cultural discussion and maturing.Two Sydney Festival offerings: A re-presentation of a political ‘feminist’ hit called LOVE AND ANGER, written and starring Betty Grumble. SINCE ALI DIED, performance piece created and performed by Omar Musa – a re-presentation dealing with minorities trying…