Performing Arts Reviews:
2008–2022

Sydney Theatre Company and UBS presents, THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI, by Bertolt Brecht, translated by Tom Wright, at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Hickson Rd. Walsh Bay. 21 March – 28 April. THE RESISTIBLE OF ARTURO UI, a play by Bertolt Brecht, in a Translation by Tom Wright, with Hugo Weaving, and directed by Kip Williams, playing at the Roslyn Packer Theatre for the Sydney Theatre Company. Brecht at the rise of the Nazis, fled Weimar Germany and lived in Scandinavia. It was in Finland in 1941 he wrote THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI. He soon after found…

an assorted few in association with Old 505 Theatre present, HOME INVASION, by Christopher Bryant, at the Old 505 Theatre, Eliza St. Newtown. 21st March – 7th April. HOME INVASION is an Australian play by Christopher Bryant that premiered at La Mama, Melbourne, in June 2015. It is a very interesting experience to see, within a week or so, an older Australian classic such as THE SHIFTING HEART written 61 years ago and be moved by it and its relevancies, despite its period writerly constructs, and to then sit at a performance of a relatively new Australian play, HOME INVASION, and…

This production of SILENT DISCO, by Lachlan Philpott is a revival. It was first presented in Sydney at the Griffin Theatre in 2011 in a production directed by Lee Lewis. Lachlan Philpott is an Australian playwright that, generally, talks of the community of the underprivileged underclass. In SILENT DISCO, the focus is on the story of Tamara (Gemma Scobie), an intelligent young adolescent handicapped by the surrounding environment of a ‘broken family’, and poverty, coping with a struggling school system, her ill single father, Laurence (Brendan Miles), and the hormones of middle teenage growth exploding in a doomed infatuation with…

Seymour Centre presents a Complicite Associates and Bryony Kimmings Production, A PACIFIST’S GUIDE TO THE WAR ON CANCER, by Bryony Kimmings, and Brian Lobel with Kirsty Housley, in the York Theatre, at the Seymour Centre, City Rd. Chippendale. 22 March – 29 March. A PACIFIST’S GUIDE TO THE WAR ON CANCER is a play work constructed around the journey of the writer, Bryony Kimmings, who had been commissioned by Complicite Associates, an arm of the internationally acclaimed theatre company Complicite, to develop a work around the subject of cancer. In the show, Ms Kimmings, with a micro-phone introduces, briefly, herself…

Photo by Grant Leslie Blue Saints Productions, in association with Hayes Theatre Co presents, IN THE HEIGHTS, Music and Lyrics, by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Book by, Quiara Alegria Hudes, at the Hayes Theatre, Greenknowe Ave. Potts Point. 16 MKarch – 16 April. IN THE HEIGHTS is an American Musical that first saw the light of day in 2005 and arrived on Broadway in 2008. It was nominated for 13 Tony Awards, and won 4, including Best musical. This work was conceived by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also wrote the Lyrics and Music, and is centred on a corner of shops in Washington…

Photo by Noni Carroll National Theatre of Parramatta present, FLIGHT PATHS, by Julian Larnach, in the Lennox Theatre, at The Riverside Theatre, Parramatta. 16th March – 24th March. FLIGHT PATHS, is a new Australian play, by Julian Larnach. Two separate stories. One tells us of Emily (Airlie Dodds), a young woman, who goes to Africa as a volunteer to take part in the manual construction of a school for an Australian Humanitarian organisation that she has worked for and admires. She meets another, a jaded volunteer, Charlie (Aileen Huynh), and Adhama (Richie Morris), the leader of the tasks in Africa. The…