Performing Arts Reviews:
2008–2022

Sydney Symphony Orchestra presents, JAZZ INSPIRATIONS: Thibaudet plays Gershwin in the Convert Hall at the Sydney Opera House. Wanting some music in my life, again, and reading publicity around the pianist, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and enamoured with the composers Dmitri Shotsakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, and curious about the classic symphonic work of George Gershwin, who I know mostly as a popular song maker of the ‘twenties and ‘thirties of the last century – I went to this concert at the Sydney Opera House. I have a conscious appreciation of my being a kind of Russophile, (dangerously imperilled by present history –…

Sydney Theatre Company presents a Sydney Theatre Company and State Theatre Company of South Australia production of VERE [FAITH] by John Doyle in the Drama Theatre at the Sydney Opera House. VERE [FAITH] is John Doyle’s second play, THE PIG IRON PEOPLE, which the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) presented in 2008, being the first. Says Andrew Upton, the Artistic Director of the STC: John Doyle … has shaped a play that finds the intersection between theatre, science and morality. The here and now of the stage, the four-dimensional fields and particles of physics, the slippages and illusions of dementia. It…

Sydney Theatre Company presents MACHINAL by Sophie Treadwell in Wharf 2 , Hickson Road.   Machinal, the play by Sophie Treadwell, was first produced on Broadway in 1928. Ms Treadwell was an investigative journalist and writer. This play was inspired, loosely based, on an actual murder case celebre of the period, that of Ruth Snyder. Ruth Snyder was convicted for the murder of her husband, and along with her lover, was executed at Sing Sing Prison – she was the first woman to be executed in the electric chair, since 1899. The case was a newspaper sensation and became historically infamous…

Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) present the 2013 Concert Season: Mozart Clarinet Concerto. This was, as usual with the ACO, an interesting program of music. The orchestra led by Satu Vanska played a short work by the Finnish composer, Einojuhani Rautavaara: A Finnish Myth (1977); from Russian, Edison Denisov: Five Paganini Caprices: Caprice No. 9.(1985) and Swedish, Goran Frost’s: DTangled (2013). The Finnish work was modern in its sound, full of grating string affects – lack of harmonies – contrasted with a, relievedly, thematic pattern. The Caprice by Denisov was of easier appeal and had enough echoes of the Paganini inspiration…

Sisters Grimm and Griffin Independent in association with Theatre Works present SUMMERTIME IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN at the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. Recently, while cogitating on the Belvoir production of HAMLET I formulated what I believe is the priority for a successful collaboration in the theatre (and, I believe, in the other mediums, too.): The Writer (i.e. good writing). The Actor (i.e. good acting). The Designer (or, historically, the Producer). The Director. In the time of Shakespeare that was the priority, and, I still believe, is more often than not, the best formula (in fact there used to be…

Photo by Gez Xavier Mansfield Dreamingful Productions presents ATOMIC – A New Musical in the Parade Playhouse, Parade Theatres, Kensington. ATOMIC – A New Musical performed in the Parade Playhouse in Kensington is a work in development – progress. A workshop reading was, so I am told, held in February of this year. It seems that much as been going on since then. One of the writers is an Australian, Danny Ginges, working with Gregory Bonsignore, an American, both on the Book and Lyrics. Philip Foxman of Australian/American background has been collaborating on the Music and Lyrics. All assisted by…