Performing Arts Reviews:
2008–2022

THE GLASS MENAGERIE opened in Chicago on December 26,1944. The following year it opened on Broadway and played there for nearly two years. “It would be performed all over America and abroad, and Hollywood would film it. Next to OUR TOWN it would become the best-known American play. When the New York Drama Critics gathered in the Algonquin Hotel on April 10,1945, they took just fifteen minutes to award nine of their fourteen votes to THE GLASS MENAGERIE and acclaim it the best play of the 1944-45 season.”1 It is regarded, today, as the first of Tennessee Williams’ great contributions…

    SYNERGY PERCUSSION present STEVE REICH AT City Recital Hall Angel Place, Sydney. (Associated Event of the ISCM World New Music days). Steve Reich is internationally, along with Philip Glass, one of the outstanding contemporary composers of today. “Our greatest living composer’’- The New York Times”…the most original musical thinker of our time” – The New Yorker. “There’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them” – The Guardian. My consciousness of him is fairly recent – the last decade, perhaps. But,…

    Dominie Drama in Association with Come Again Jnr. Presents THE THINGS GOOD MEN DO, written by Dan Muirden at the TAP GALLERY, DARLINGHURST. THE THINGS GOOD MEN DO was written in 2007. The play concerns Nick (Chad Richards) who along with his best friend Joe (Chris Leaney) are leading the good life in, relatively high flying incomes and a life style that is fundamentally morally indulgent and fancy free –alpha males as full-bore sexual game players and/or predators. We may have been there ourselves a few years ago, or certainly know of others who have been. But Nick…

Among others, Tom Hulce & Ira Pittleman, Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Association with Awaken Entertainment, John Pinckard and John Domo Present: AMERICAN IDIOT, Music by Green Day; Lyrics by Billie Joe Armstrong; Book by Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer at the St.James Theatre, Broadway. I have ten more shows from my USA trip to blog. So here goes. I arrived in New York Tuesday afternoon and went to see AMERICAN IDIOT at the St James Theater that night. This work was still in preview, but I chose to see it because I thought it would have the dynamic of…

    Performance 4a and Company B Belvoir present STORIES EAST & WEST AT Upstairs Belvoir. This was a one night only event. Who is Performance 4a? “Performance 4a is a non-profit organisation established in 2002, seeking to engage artists and audiences alike in the discussion about how Asia and Australia are linked in contemporary life. We do this through performances, workshops, and via our website, home of the Asian-Australian Performance Directory.” This showing comes from a storytelling workshop conducted by William Yang for 4a in 2009. Six storytellers all from Asian backgrounds told us, in two parts, stories from…

    RIDE ON and GRIFFIN INDEPENDENT presents WAY TO HEAVEN by Juan Mayorga, translated by David Johnston at the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. WAY TO HEAVEN introduces the Sydney audience to an award winning Spanish contemporary playwright, Juan Mayorga. It is an interesting introduction and one that raises my curiosity about his other work. This is a good reason to go to the theatre to meet this mind. Another good reason to go is to catch a performance by an emerging young artist, Nathan Lovejoy that is fascinating and seductive to behold. This play (translated by David Johnston)…