Category: Alice Babidge

Sydney Theatre Company presents the Residents in ORESTEIA by Aeschylus. In a new adaptation by Tom Wright at the Wharf 1. Tom Wright has adapted the Aeschylus ORESTEIA. He is also the Director. It is, “…of course a trilogy. This production isn’t. It’s a version mainly of the first two plays in the trilogy, AGAMEMNON and CHOEPHORI (the Libation Bearers), with a dues ex machina at the end. Apollo’s speech of conclusion is based on his words in Aeschylus’ third play, EUMENIDES, but fundamentally this version isn’t an attempt to present the whole catastrophe. It’s an attempt at a distillation,…

  Company B Belvoir presents THAT FACE by Polly Stenham at Belvoir St Theatre. One of the major centres for contemporary writing, “ a new writing powerhouse”, in the UK is the Royal Court. In all of its manifestations, it has been, for a very long time. My memory of my History of Theatre lectures, as a student, take me back to G.B. Shaw and Harley Granville Barker dreams of a National Theatre and this building. Certainly the John Osborne LOOK BACK IN ANGER ‘bomb’ resonated from there (1957) and changed what was, then, newly acceptable on our stages. From…

  Sydney Theatre Company presents THE RESIDENTS in THE MYSTERIES: GENESIS. A new version by Hilary Bell & Lally Katz. The Residents are the Sydney Theatre Company’s new permanent ensemble of players: Alice Ansara, Cameron Goodall, Ursula Mills, Julia Ohannessian, Zindzi Okenyo, Richard Pyros, Sophie Ross, Tahki Saul and Brett Stiller. The Residents “with the exploration, shaping and fine-tuning of new works as a guiding objective… provide an invaluable resource to playwrights and directors…” THE MYSTERIES: GENESIS is a new version of some of the stories from the Hebrew Bible (Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament) by Hilary Bell and Lally…

  Small Things Productions in association with B Sharp presents LADYBIRD by Vassily Sigarev at the Downstairs Theatre. Vassily Sigarev a contemporary Russian writer has had three of his plays presented in Sydney: PLASTICINE (2000); BLACK MILK (2002) and now LADYBIRD (2004). Each of these plays deal with the desolation of parts of the Russian society in the era of Putin’s government. The lower depths of the very recent past time. Some commentators have, in an attempt to define Mr Sigarev’s niche, suggested him as the contemporary Gorky or Dostoyevsky. This may be somewhat premature. Certainly in the “world“ of…

On entering the theatre, one encounters the seats swathed in white dust covers. (You are also provided with a history of the Trojan war and the events leading up to the play, neatly printed out for your perusal on your seat.) The stage is lit with fluorescents. Stark, cool unattractive reality. (Lighting by Damian Cooper.) Along the entire back wall of the raised theatre stage there is a huge jigsaw of wooden and metal lockers which you might find in a very old gymnasium dressing room. They are either stacked horizontally or vertically, some with doors but most not. It…

This is a wonderful piece of writing and Robyn Nevin was wonderfully vulnerable in this one person piece. I saw this early in the run (twice) and felt that I had never seen Ms Nevin so delicate and fragile with her usual strengths of cool intelligence and insight. Sensitively supported by Cate Blanchett with a provocative Set Design by Alice Babidge beautifully lit by Nick Schlieper and an abrasive but mostly apt Sound Design. Stimulating.