Performing Arts Reviews:
2008–2022

  Rachael Healey & Associates present the Melbourne Theatre Company production of DON PARTIES ON by David Williamson at the Sydney Theatre. David Williamson’s latest play DON PARTIES ON returns to some of his beloved characters of some forty years ago. DON’S PARTY (1971) was set on the evening of the 1969 Federal election. It concerns a group of young affluent friends, all with their personal, social and political achievements and aspirations on display. It is a splendid evocation of some aspects of the Australian culture of the period. It is full of personal hopes and collapses, of celebrations and…

  Sydney Theatre Company present: In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play by Sarah Ruhl, in the Drama Theatre at the Sydney Opera House. “If Henrik Ibsen and Oscar Wilde had decided to collaborate on a post-modern drawing-room comedy, the hotsy-totsy twosome surely would have turned out something very much like Sarah Ruhl’s genuinely hysterical new work,” (Theatremania). This is a quote from the Sydney Theatre Company’s advertisement for the show. It is a delightfully pitched idea, and I tend to agree with it. Sarah Ruhl is one of the new American writers making a splash, through dint of…

Belvoir presents THE WILD DUCK by Simon Stone with Chris Ryan after Henrik Ibsen in the Upstairs Theatre. THE WILD DUCK written by Simon Stone, also the Director, with Chris Ryan, after Henrik Ibsen’s play (1884) of the same name, is a new contemporary Australian play. This adaptation and re-writing, like Mr Stone’s other Ibsen inspired play (with Thomas Henning), THE ONLY CHILD (from Ibsen’s LITTLE EYOLF), as texts, presage a very good night in the theatre. Both of these texts are very interesting. This one better than the other, I felt. And while, if one is a committed Ibsenite,…

Blancmange Productions and Slide Cabaret present ALICE AND ALAN’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. A New Australian Musical at Slide, Oxford Street, Sydney. ALICE AND ALAN’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND presented at Slide Cabaret venue is “a new 3 act Australian musical, fantastic erotic comedy, served up with a superb 3 course degustation dinner.” Slide, is a very beautifully appointed venue. The food served with this musical entertainment was good and the staff could not be more helpful and pleasant to make this theatre-restaurant type experience easy and pleasurable. ALICE AND ALAN’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND is unfortunately not very good. The writing (Book…

  Sydney Chamber Opera presents NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND by Jack Symonds and Pierce Wilcox at the Cell Block Theatre, National Art School, Darlinghurst. SYDNEY CHAMBER OPERA, a new presence in Sydney. NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND, a new work. Sydney Chamber Opera has been formed by some young musicians to provide opportunity for the interested artists to have a resource and source to pursue the opera form. They wish to prevent the opera from becoming a heritage art form. They wish to make opera a vital part of contemporary life being stimulated by the youth who have the passion for the form…

  Out Cast Theatre in partnership with Darlinghurst Theatre Company presents JANE AUSTEN’S GUIDE TO PORNOGRAPHY & GORGEOUS BASTARD at the Darlinghurst Theatre, Sydney. JANE AUSTEN’S GUIDE TO PORNOGRAPHY & GORGEOUS BASTARD is written, designed and directed by Steve Dawson (Who is in charge, here?) and produced by Adrian Corbett. Mr Dawson has had 44 of his plays produced. His plays have been performed in New York, Chicago, Edinburgh, London and across Australia. Out Cast Theatre, the program claims, is “Australia’s longest running GLBTIQ theatre”. There is advertising for an extensive 2011 season. Write it and they will come! “Out…