Performing Arts Reviews:
2008–2022

Photo by Andre Vasquez Brevity Theatre and Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival presents, SPACE CATS – an Intergalactic Feline Musical, by Samantha Young, at The Old 505 Theatre, Eliza St. Newtown. SPACE CATS – an Intergalactic Feline Musical at the Old 505 Theatre in Newtown has been Written and Directed by, and co-stars, Samantha Young. It begins in Russia in 1957 with the launching of the first dog, Laika (Graeme Mcrae), into space. This ‘rocket’ however, unlike the real satellite of history, crash lands onto a planet made up of 4 cats and many, many glitter balls. There is…

Photo by Brett Boardman Griffin Theatre Company presents The World Premiere of LADIES DAY, by Alana Valentine, in the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. 5 Feb – 26 March. So, when LADIES DAY, by Alana Valentine, concluded the other evening, at the Griffin, my guest and I discussed: “What was the play about?” Says the Director, Darren Yap: LADIES DAY is an important, honest and confronting play. It’s not only an intelligent piece about people living on the margins who don’t often get a chance  to tell their stories, but it also hits you in the gut. For me the…

National Theatre, in a co-production with Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester presents, HUSBANDS AND SONS, by D.H. Lawrence, adapted by Ben Power, in the Dorfman Theatre, at the National Theatre, London. U.K. D.H. Lawrence was born in 1885 in Eastwood, near Nottingham, the fourth child of five children of coalminer Arthur and his wife Lydia. He died at the age of 44, in 1930. He is most celebrated for his novel writing which include famously: SONS AND LOVERS (1913), THE RAINBOW (1915), WOMEN IN LOVE (1920), KANGAROO (1923), LADY CHATTERERLEY’S LOVER (1928). But besides ten collections of poetry and seven collections…

Photo by Manuel Harlan The Old Vic presents THE MASTER BUILDER, by Henrik Ibsen. A new adaptation by David Hare, at The Old Vic, London, U.K. 23 Jan – 19 March, 2016. According to the Old Vic program notes, by Nick Curtis, on this production of Henrik Ibsen’s THE MASTER BUILDER: Today, (Ibsen) is the second most performed playwright in the world, after Shakespeare, and seen as the inheritor to Shakespeare’s mantle as a poetic explorer of the human condition. THE MASTER BUILDER is a play not often seen in Australia. Henrik Ibsen has, for me, three distinct phases in…

  Belvoir presents JASPER JONES. Based on the novel by Craig Silvey. Adapted by Kate Mulvaney. In the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St, Surry Hills. 6 Jan – 7 Feb., 2016. JASPER JONES, was written by Craig Silvey, with a young adult readership in mind in 2009, and has garnered many prizes and become a popular book – even a studied school text. I was never a fan of the book, finding it a fairly ordinarily researched novel – it is set in a country town, Corrigan, in Western Australia during the period of the Vietnam war, the summer of 1965.…

Photo by Lisa Tomasetti Sydney Theatre Company presents THE GOLDEN AGE, by Louis Nowra, at the Wharf 1 Thearte, Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay.  19 Jan – 20 Feb. THE GOLDEN AGE, by Louis Nowra was published in 1985. The first production was given at the Playbox Theatre in Melbourne, Directed by Rex Cramphorn. I first saw the play in a NIDA production by Neil Armfield with Richard Roxburgh, as Francis – it was a truly memorable production. I have had, always, a ‘romance’ about the early work of Louis Nowra. In the late 1970’s a group of artists, including myself, had…