Performing Arts Reviews:
2008–2022

Photo by Marya Rothe Mad March Hare Theatre Company presents, SHIVERED, by Philip Ridley, at the Pact Theatre, 107 Railway Parade, Erskineville. May 9 – May 30. SHIVERED (2012), by Philip Ridley, continues his ferocious gaze over the dysfunctional contemporary world: THE PITCHFORK DISNEY (1991), VINCENT RIVER (2000), MERCURY FUR (2005), LEAVES OF GLASS (2007), PIRANHA  HEIGHTS (2008). Although Mr Ridley is writing of the United Kingdom, it is not difficult to realise the parallels legitimate to our own environment. SHIVERED is set in a fictional, collapsed industrial town, Draylingstowe, where poison from a car factory has disfigured and killed…

  Rock Surfers Theatre Company present, ANIMAL/PEOPLE, in the Bondi Pavilion, Bondi Beach. 29 April – 16 May. ANIMAL /PEOPLE, is a new play by Brooke Robinson. It is made up of two ‘short-story’ monologues addressed to the audience, that finally, interact at its end. The subject matter of the material is not necessarily of a very interesting nature and, though, explored with some detail, lacks any aesthetic arrest: husband/wife/son/dog/accident/ extended feelings of guilt … … On the night I attended there were only 11 of us, watching. The two actors, Georgia Adamson and Martin Crewes, were valiant in their…

Photos by Zorica Purlija Peter Fray presents, BLUE ITALIAN and NIL BY SEA, by Katie Pollock, at the Leichhardt Town Hall, Sydney. April 29 – May 17, 2015. BLUE ITALIAN and NIL BY SEA are two new short plays by Katie Pollock. The evening is short, less than an hour, total. One enters the space by a side door from a bleak, small, fluorescent-lit foyer of the Leichhardt Town Hall and walk through some local council (LMC) yellow and black road block tools on the floor flat, with the blinking battery lights indicating caution. The light is dim and the…

Photo by Tracey Schramm ATYP (Australian Theatre for Young People) and the State Library of New South Wales present, A TOWN NAMED WAR BOY, by Ross Mueller, in the auditorium at the State Library, Macquarie Street, 29 April – 9 May. A TOWN NAMED WAR BOY, is a new Australian play by Ross Mueller. Inspired by diaries of young World War 1 veterans, kept in the State Library of New South Wales’ collection, Mr Mueller has crafted a play inventing a counselling session between an ex-soldier and a psychiatrist, to facilitate a travel back to the events of recruitment, training…

Photo by Andrew Bott Seymour Centre, Red Stitch and The United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney present, GROUNDED, by George Brant, in the Reginald Theatre, City Rd Chippendale, May 1st – 16th. GROUNDED, by George Brant, performed by Kate Cole at the Reginald Theatre, SHOULD NOT BE MISSED. An exhilarated female Top Gun flies her own plane, her ‘Tiger”,  striking down the enemy, begins a relationship with an ordinary but love-smitten man, becomes pregnant, is required to stop flying, has a girl child, Sam, and later returns to the Air Force as part of “The Chair Force”…

Photo by Rupert Reid Red Lines Productions presents, DOLORES, by Edward Allan Baker, at the Old Fitzroy Theatre, Cathedral and Dowling St, Woolloomooloo. 28 April – 9 May. DOLORES (1986), is a one act play written by American, Edward Allan Baker. He says: “I write about people born to brick and asphalt, who don’t have bad days, they have bad years.” A ‘social realist’ then. And, based on this experience, in spades. Sandra (Jannine Watson) in her working class home, in Providence, Rhode Island, is having her weekly sojourn, alone with her self to indulge her simple needs, while husband and…