Performing Arts Reviews:
2008–2022

Photo by Robert Catto The Kings Collective, presents, WASTED, by Kate Tempest, at the Old Factory, Marrickville. 1 – 9 December. Kate Tempest is a British Poet, Performance Artist, Playwright and Novelist, a dynamic artist (slam-poetry) who has – is – speaking for a generation trying to find the way-to-survive in the modern world through a disillusioned lens. Her passions were ignited as a young woman and flashed into perspective, she has said, when the London March (and others) against the Iraq War, in which millions of people participated, was ignored, and made no difference to the World Governments’ direction…

Photo by Prudence Upton Ensemble Theatre presents, TAKING STEPS, by Alan Ayckbourn, at the Ensemble Theatre, Kirribilli. 23 November – 13 January. The Alan Ayckbourn play TAKING STEPS, written in 1979, the twenty-fourth opus from his ‘genius’ (now having completed some 79 plays, the last one – so far – called ROUNDELAY, in 2014), is part of a faithful commitment of The Ensemble Theatre to his work and underlines the entertainment value that he inevitably delivers for audiences. There is usually some ‘challenge’ that the writer has given himself, for the audience’s delectation, in all of his plays, and in…

Photo by Robert Catto Highway Run Productions and Neil Gooding Productions and the Hayes Theatre, present HIGH FIDELITY, Lyrics by Amanda Green, Music by Tom Kitt, Book by David Lindsay-Abaire. Based on the novel by Nick Hornby and the Touchstone Pictures Film. At the Hayes Theatre Greenknowe Ave, Kings Cross. November 22 – December 17. HIGH FIDELITY is a musical of 2006, a famous Broadway flop (set in Brooklyn). It is based on the novel of 1995, by Nick Hornby (set in London), and the film of 2000, Directed by Stephen Frears, and starring John Cusack (set in Chicago). It…

Photo by Ross Waldron Don’t Look Away and bAKEHOUSE Theatre Company present, NIGHT SLOWS DOWN, A new play by Phillip James Rouse, at the King’s Cross Theatre (KXT), in the King’s Cross Hotel. November 17 – December 9. NIGHT SLOWS DOWN, is a new Australian play, by Phillip James Rouse. It is an ambitious play, with a flashback set of scenes interpolated into the forward action of the narrative, that attempts to illustrate the modern political world where the Nationalistic/Fascist tendencies of a government can lead to overwrought and misconceived expressions of power, as in the case in this play,…

Photo by Prudence Upton Bell Shakespeare present THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, by William Shakespeare, in the Playhouse Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House. Until 26 November. I went to see this Bell Shakespeare production of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, Directed by Anne-Louise Sarks, on the favourable ‘word-of-mouth’ I had, mostly, received from friends, who, like me, had had a very dispiriting experience with their production of OTHELLO***, last year, and, of course, because of my continuing interest in this very vexing play. Vexing? Says Norrie Epstein in his book THE FRIENDLY SHAKESPEARE: THE MERCHANT OF VENICE  is a troubling play.…

  It seems a while since we have seen a play by Harold Pinter. Oh, no, there was the Sydney Theatre Company’s NO MAN’S LAND and more recently, BETRAYAL at the Ensemble Theatre. It is THE CARETAKER (1959) that we have not seen for a while. This play is one of the earliest of his successes along with THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (1957) and THE HOMECOMING (1964) that propelled Pinter into the pantheon of one of the British greats. ‘That he occupies a position as a modern classic is illustrated by his name entering the language as an adjective used to describe a…