Performing Arts Reviews:
2008–2022

THE SUGAR SYNDROME (2003) is Lucy Prebble’s first play. In Sydney, we have seen, the brilliantly conceived play, THE EFFECT (2012), in a relatively botched production at the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) – I had seen the original production at the National Theatre – and before that, a production of the multi-award winning play, ENRON (2009) at the enterprising and surprising New Theatre in Newtown (since the play dealt with the fraudulent activities of Investment Companies/Corporations, one can, perhaps, understand why that play never got onto the corporately sponsored STC stages – keeping your audience ignorant and your sponsors happy is sometimes important…

Photo by Ken Butti Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO) with Credit Suisse Australia, present a Special Event: TRISTAN UND ISOLDE by Richard Wagner, in Concert, in the Concert Hall, at the Sydney Opera House. Saturday 20 June and Monday 22 June, 2015. So, on Friday I attended TRIASSIC PARQ and on Saturday I attended TRISTAN UND ISOLDE. It was an experiential journey from the ridiculous to the sublime, in a mere 24 hours. Variety is the spice of life, they tell me! A blissful, transformative night: TRISTAN UND ISOLDE by Richard Wagner in concert form, presented by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, led…

  Seymour Centre presents Squabbalogic Independent Music Theatre’s Production of TRIASSIC PARQ. Music by Marshall Pailet. Book and Lyrics by Marshall Pailet, Bryce Norbitz and Steve Wargo, in the Reginald Theatre, at the Seymour Centre. June 17 – July 4, 2015. TRIASSIC PARQ, first appeared in 2010 and was produced as an Off-Broadway musical, in the Soho Theatre, New York, in 2012. It takes the story of Jurassic Park as a starting point and tells the story from the dinosaurs point-of-view. From Wikipedia: A clan of genetically engineered female dinosaurs (played by male and female actors) is thrown into chaos…

Photos by Matthias Essinger The New Theatre presents, THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, at the New Theatre, King St. Newtown. 9 June – 11 July. THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (1955), by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, is an adaption from THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL (1952) which was a published text of the Dutch language diary of Anne Frank, telling the story of two families hiding from the Nazi regime in the 1940’s, in Amsterdam. The original text was edited (cleaned-up) and published by the only surviving member of one of the families,…

Photo by Helen White Darlinghurst Theatre Co present, VENUS IN FUR, by David Ives, at the Eternity Playhouse, Darlinghurst. (29 May – 5 July). VENUS IN FUR, by American, David Ives, was written in 2011. It is, according to the Wickipedia source, “this play-within-a-play is an adaptation of the 1870 novel VENUS IN FURS by the Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and happens to be the novel that inspired the term Masochism.” In a flash of lightning (Lighting Design, by Sian James-Holland) and crash of thunder (Composition and Sound Design, by Jessica James-Moody), a young actress, Vanda (Anna Houston), stumbles…

Photo by Lisa Tomasetti Sydney Theatre Company and Allens present, BATTLE OF WATERLOO, by Kylie Coolwell, at Wharf 1, Sydney Theatre Company, Hickson Rd Walsh Bay. 5th June – 27th June. BATTLE OF WATERLOO, by Kylie Coolwell, is a new Australian play. This is the Indigenous play that I have been waiting for. Ms Coolwell has written a work from the heart of an urban Indigenous community, in the contemporary world of the housing commission buildings of Waterloo, not far from Redfern, set in the thrilling pulse of the everyday and centred on the robust life of an extended family.…