Performing Arts Reviews:
2008–2022

Glorious Thing Theatre Co presents, METAFOUR. Four Short Plays By Samuel Beckett, at the Pact Theatre, Erskineville, 30th July – 8th August. METAFOUR is a collection of four short plays by Samuel Beckett: COME AND GO (1965), ROCKABY (1980), QUAD (1981), and CATASTROPHE (1981), presented by a young company of artists, from the Glorious Thing Theatre Co. The artists Aslam Abdus-Samad, Bodelle de Ronde, Victoria Greiner, Sophie Littler, Pollyanna Nowicki and Gideon Payten-Griffiths, have been Directed by Erica J. Brennan. The program is about 60 minutes in length and the material is, mostly, a showing of a late development in…

Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) present, A FRENCH CELEBRATION, with Susan Graham, in the City Recital Hall Angel Place, Sydney. 11 July – 22 July. The Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) presented, A FRENCH CELEBRATION, with Susan Graham. This was a concert of a true chamber size: six instruments What was revelatory, for me, was the beauty of the music of Maurice Ravel, especially, as revealed in the PIANO TRIO IN A MINOR (1914-15). Composed while working in the ambulance corps of the French army at the beginning of World War I, the Program Notes by Martin Buzacott, tells us; It is…

Photo by Gez Xavier Mansfield Darlinghurst Theatre Company, proudly supported by The Stafford Morgan Family, present DETROIT, by Lisa D’Amour, at the Eternity Playhouse, Darlinghurst, 17 July – 16 August. American playwright, Lisa D’Amour wrote DETROIT in 2010 for the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2011, which was awarded to CLYBOURNE PARK, by Bruce Norris. The play is set in the backyards of two next-door-neighbours, in the first ‘ring’ of suburbia, now, and, although, the play is called DETROIT it could be, says the writer, any mid-size city in the US of…

I Photo by Marnya Rothe Producer Adam Liberman in association with Red Line Productions present, BLONDE POISON, by Gail Louw, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral St. Wolloomooloo,  28 July – 15 August. BLONDE POISON, is a one woman monologue/play, by Gail Louw, based on a book: ONE WOMAN’S TRUE TALE OF EVIL, BETRAYAL, AND SURVIVAL IN HITLER’S BERLIN, by journalist, Peter Wyden (1992). Stella Goldschag was an exceptionally beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed Jewish girl growing up in Berlin during the rise of Hitler’s Nazi party. Stella passed as an Ayran because of her looks and had forged identity papers, prepared by a…

Photo by Heidrun Lohr Belvoir presents, MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN, by Bertolt Brecht. Translation, by Michael Gow. In the Upstairs Theare at Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills. 6 June – 26 July. Bertolt Brecht was born in 1898 in Bavaria. He was 16 when the First World War, led by Germany, engulfed Europe for the next 4 years. He watched and then experienced the fatal reparation demands on defeated Germany, from the Paris Peace Conference, in 1919, that the victors made, primarily represented, led, by the American President Woodrow Wilson (who also dreamt of the founding of a League…

  Pulse Group Theatre presents GRACE, by Craig Wright, at The Actor’s Pulse Studios, 103 Regent St Redfern, 7 – 26 July. Take Note all: GRACE is the first production in a new theatre on the Sydney scene: Pulse Group Theatre. GRACE was written in 2004, and had its Broadway debut in 2012. It is written by Craig Wright, an American playwright not seen in Sydney before, (he has written many plays), whereas his television writing in SIX FEET UNDER and BROTHERS AND SISTERS, we, possibly, may have. GRACE introduces us to Steve (Joseph Addabbo) and Sara (Nikki Waterhouse) two…