Performing Arts Reviews:
2008–2022

Australian Chamber Orchestra. Tour Five. SCHUBERT STRING QUINTET. At the City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney. The Australian Chamber Orchestra is represented by four of its artists: Richard Tognetti (Violin), Satu Vanska (Violn), Christopher Moore(Viola), Timo-Veikko Valve (Cello) with a guest, Finnish cellist Jan-Erik Gustafsson. A true chamber music concert, then. Intimate grouping of players and attuned sensibilities of a period soiree, between the players and the audience. This concert was a sensitive and delicately refined execution of music by Bach, Stravinsky, Webern and Schubert. The first half of the concert was an intriguing presentation of excerpts from Bach”s THE…

  Red Rabbit Theatre Company supported by NIDA Springboard Program in association with Pearly Productions presents FEFU AND HER FRIENDS by Maria Irene Fornes at the Parade Studio, NIDA, Anzac Parade, Kensington. Maria Irene Fornes, a Cuban American writer based in New York, even in her own city, even in her own country, is a writer of ’boutique’ fame, if you reference, say, David Mamet, who, comparably, may be a ‘major department store’. She has however won 13 Obies and is in her eighties. She has been a pivotal figure in Hispanic-American and experimental theatre. She was part of the…

  Bardic Productions in association with the Tamarama Rock Surfers presents THE HAUNTING OF DANIEL GARTRELL at the Old Fitzroy Theatre. A young actor, Craig Castevich (Joshua Morton) is researching the background to a famous Australian poet, Daniel Gartrell (Mark Sheridan) in preparation for a documentary film shoot. Craig scores the opportunity to meet the man himself and goes to his run down, neglected home to find an irascible eccentric who proceeds to taunt him with a series of interviews that lead to darker and darker revelations. The old poet’s daughter (Elizabeth Tuilekutu) also makes her presence felt and adds…

  Griffin Theatre Company presents AND NO MORE SHALL WE PART by Tom Holloway at the SBW Stables Theatre, Sydney. Contemporary issues of importance, Climate Change, the continuing Global Financial Crisis (frighteningly imminent today), the famines and degradation of Africa, South America, the South Pacific, the Indigenous crisis in Australia,the culpable history of Australian settlement or invasion, the tragic warring nature of our species, the welfare of our neighbourhood relations, the plight of our elderly, the abortion and the euthanasia dilemma, the ruthlessness of corporations and their C.E.O.’s pursuing output and K.P.I.’s and profit at the expense of quality, transparency…

  Belvoir presents NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH by Lally Katz at the Belvoir St. Upstairs Theatre. NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH by Lally Katz, a new Australian play, bears a dedication in the printed text and program to Anna Bosnjak and Robyn Nevin. In Ms Katz’s notes to the program she tells us of her encounter with a neighbour, an Hungarian woman, and then of “The next two years (that she) spent constantly with Anna. Often seven days a week, all day and into the night we would talk. We shared everything together. She showed me her memories and the world. I asked her advice…

  SYDNEY CHAMBER OPERA presents THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN by Leos Janacek in Bat 20 at Carriageworks. Earlier in the year, Sydney Chamber Opera work launched itself with the production of a new work, NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND, based on a short work by Dostoevsky. It was a remarkable debut. Tackling Janacek’s THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN is a brave choice as the work is relatively well known from its many outings in the Opera Australia repertoire. The work has a large cast, including a vitally important children’s chorus. Premiered the 6th November, 1924 at the National Theatre, Brno, this opera story…