Category: Alice Livingstone

MY NIGHT WITH REG, by Kevin Elyot, in 1982, is a prize winning play that has often, still is, revived around the world. It is made up of three scenes in the apartment of Guy (John-Paul Santucci), a single gay man, and a group of friends who intermittently, but loyally meet up. Time wise it covers several years. Reg never appears in the play but has had an impressive set of relationships with nearly everybody else in the play. It is set in the times of the rise of the HIV epidemic, though no-one ever names that devastation. We gather…

Photo by Chris Lundie New Theatre presents, AUSTRALIA DAY, by Jonathan Biggins, at the New Theatre, King St., Newtown. 14 November – 16 December. The New Theatre present a revival production of Jonathan Biggin’s 2012 comedy, AUSTRALIA DAY. It was first seen in the Drama Theatre for the Sydney Theatre Company (STC), in 2012. AUSTRALIA DAY is set in the local community hall in a country town called Coriole. Says, the Director of this production, Louise Fischer, a girl from the country: When I first read AUSTRALIA DAY I was transported back to my misspent youth. I recognised the people that…

Photo by Photo Bob Seary New Theatre presents, THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED, by Douglas Carter Beane, at the New Theatre, King St, Newtown. 7 February – 4 March. THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED, by American writer, Douglas Carter Beane, has had a previous outing at the Ensemble Theatre in 2009. The play had been nominated in 2006 for a Tony Award, in New York, and, I, based on the Ensemble production that I saw, could not understand why. It appeared to be one of those New Yorkie glib ‘homosexual’ plays about the cliche shallowness of being ‘gay’ and of the cliched ugly…

New Theatre presents PRIVATES ON PARADE by Peter Nichols with music by Denis King as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras at the New Theatre, Newtown. The New Theatre have presented, Peter Nichols’ PRIVATES ON PARADE before, some 25 years ago. John Short was the musical director of that earlier production and is again. During the preparation Mr Short brought to the attention of his Director, Alice Livingstone, differences between the text he had worked on then and the present one that they had begun to “solve”. In her program notes, Ms Livingstone tells us, that she…

Photograph by Bob-Seary New Theatre presents HAY FEVER by Noel Coward at the New Theatre, Newtown. Noel Coward’s HAY FEVER is given a perky and, mostly, stylish production at the New Theatre. Some regard Mr Coward’s plays as, relatively, frivolous pieces of fluff, and, certainly, Mr Coward himself, declared his distaste for “plays with a message”. Mr Coward’s prolific output needs not much introduction, and beside his play texts, has left an extensive musical repertoire, and some curious film projects that still hold some deal of interest (IN WHICH WE SERVE). Of his plays from the pre-World War Two era,…

Photograph by Bob Seary New Theatre presents TOP GIRLS by Caryl Churchill at the New Theatre, Newtown. I have always regarded the writer as the God in the theatre from which all other creative efforts are inspired. The better the writer the more support all the other artists have to proceed to build a quality experience for an audience. When the writer is respected and examined to provide the superstructure for the production, trusting the writer’s clues and resisting their own ‘re-writing’ need to personally ‘fingerprint’ the original work, a good time is more likely to be arrived at than…