Performing Arts Reviews:
2008–2022

  A burlesque performance, YOU LITTLE STRIPPER, at the Red Rattler Venue, Marrickville. Friday night in Marrickville – a suburban Council district, fast becoming the place to be to share in theatre with a twist – at the Red Rattler a collective of experimental, political and sexually edgy performers have been corralled to give a night of robust and explosively joyous outlets for an audience of minorities who sometimes simply want to share their joy and invention for life together in a public gathering. It sure is liberating. The energy in the theatre-building is infectious with goodwill and provocation. Dancers…

Sport for Jove Theatre in partnership with Darlinghurst Theatre Company Present THE LIBERTINE by Stephen Jeffreys at the Darlinghurst Theatre. THE LIBERTINE by Stephen Jeffreys at the Darlinghurst Theatre is the BEST night I have had in the theatre, with a play, this year. There could be no greater contrast to the experience at atyp Under the Wharf production, SWEET BIRD ANDSOFORTH which I saw last week, and underlines my observations expressed in my post on A QUIET NIGHT IN RANGOON at the New Theatre at present. In the …RANGOON post I talk about my hard earned view of the…

  Mess Hall in association with atyp Under the Wharf present the world premiere SWEET BIRD ANDSOFORTH by Laura Naumann, translated by Benjamin Winspear. Multi talented Benjamin Winspear (Actor, Director) initially developed SWEET BIRD ANDSOFORTH at 2009 World Interplay.(World Interplay is the largest festival of young playwrights in the world. It is held, according to the Internet, for two weeks every two years in Townsville, Queensland). In 2010, Mr Winspear, subsequently laboured, apparently, over a translation of this play into English from the German. Laura Scrivano, the Director, led the cast through a creative development at Queen St. Studios, as…

  subtlenunance in association with The Spare Room presents the world premiere of A QUIET NIGHT IN RANGOON by Katie Pollock at the New Theatre, Newtown,Sydney. PAY ATTENTION, please. A QUIET NIGHT IN RANGOON by Katie Pollock is a new Australian play of some note and heralds for me a playwright I want to see more from, to look forward to more output. The talent scouts of the Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir St. and the Griffin ought to see this play and jump with enthusiasm at this interesting emerging talent and this play. An Australian play with an Australian female…

BELVOIR presents WINDMILL BABY by David Milroy in the Downstairs Theatre at Belvoir St Theatre. WINDMILL BABY by David Milroy was commissioned and first produced by Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company, Perth in 2005. David Milroy and Ningali Lawford were awarded the Patrick White Playwright award for a collection of Indigenous plays in 2003. This play, not this production, has toured internationally. WINDMILL BABY is a one woman monologue . First time director, of this production, Kylie Farmer (Kaarljilba Kaardn), tells us in her Director’s notes : “The storyteller is Maymay (Roxanne McDonald), an old Aboriginal woman returning to her camp…

    Ken Unsworth a famous Australian sculptor has collaborated with AUSTRALIAN DANCE ARTISTS: Susan Barling, Anca Frankenhaeuser, Patrick Harding-Irmer, Ross Philip and Norman Hall on a personal two performances only, gift, to some invited Sydney audience of AS I CROSSED THE BRIDGE OF DREAMS on Cockatoo Island, Sydney Harbour. The audience I saw this work with, met at Circular Quay, in front of the MCA, and were ferried to Cockatoo Island on a still, fresh winter’s night. We disembarked onto the fore-shore, under the spectacularly lit cliffs of this sanctuary of ART, Cockatoo Island, rescued from the industrial landscape…