Category: Alice Livingstone

  New Theatre present ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE by Joe Orton at the New Theatre, Newtown. ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE (1964), LOOT (1965) and WHAT THE BUTLER SAW (1967) are the three major plays of Joe Orton. All, now classics, timeless in their observations. The form of Mr Orton’s inventions became progressively more and more sophisticated until finally in WHAT THE BUTLER SAW, we have a masterpiece of wit, at a Restoration play level of complication and satire, and a combined dangerous physical farce of the top notch vaudeville stage exemplars. Both ingredients insisting on actors of amazing skills to pull it…

  New Theatre  presents WOMEN, POWER and CULTURE at the New Theatre, Newtown. The New Theatre is the longest continuous running theatre in Sydney. This company has a long and important place in the theatre culture of Sydney (if not in Australia, with its fellow companies in other capitals, under the banner of the New Theatre). “We dared a group of Sydney’s leading and emerging female playwrights to tell the stories that lie behind the triumphs and struggles that mark women’s contribution to our political, social and cultural life. It’s amazing to think that it’s taken Australian women 109 years…

    NEW THEATRE present the Australian première of CANARY by Jonathan Harvey. CANARY by Jonathan Harvey premièred last year in Liverpool and subsequently at the Hampstead Theatre in London in May 2010. Jonathan Harvey probably came to most people’s attention with his play, turned film, BEAUTIFUL THING. This was followed by other plays and a television series called BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE and cult comedy series called GIMME GIMME GIMME. Coming back to the theatre, Mr Harvey has written an epic decade covering journey of some parts of Gay British history. Beginning in 1961 and spanning time ‘til now, Mr Harvey…

A COUPLE OF POOR, POLISH-SPEAKING ROMANIANS by Dorota Maslowska. Translated by Benjamin Paloff. Adapted by Lisa Goldman and Paul Sirett. Produced by Pete Nettell and Alice Livingstone for Focus Theatre, in association with Newtown Theatre. A desperate couple, Parcha (Neil Phipps) and Dzina (Mairead Berne), claiming to be poor, Polish-speaking Romanians, hijack and kidnap a driver (Kim Knuckey) and his car, trying to get “home”. They harass him in a most intimidating way and in growing ‘middle class’ hysteria the driver concedes to their demands.Later they abandon the car and driver, unaccountably rewarding him with a large sum of money.…

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian MARDI GRAS 2009 logo stands beside the FOCUS THEATRE logo at the top of the program. BE WARNED then, that, these two plays, as performance pieces, have a very specific audience target in mind. Both plays are examples of extreme verbal voyeurism. Both plays have what seems to be a recent Hallmark of Focus Theatre performances, a de rigueur requirement of including “male striptease” and full frontal nakedness, a titillating element of soft porn. (Witness BLOWING WHISTLES and it’s soft porn memories.) I guess if Channel 9 can score audience targets with similar tactics in…

BLOWING WHISTLES is an English play by Matthew Todd skilfully adapted to the local Sydney scene by Alice Livingstone and Pete Nettell. This is a revival of a production of this play after a successful season at the B Sharp venue at Belvoir during the 2008 Mardi Gras festivities last February. The post card blurb suggests that “straight and gay audiences alike will relate to this comedy”. Certainly the gay audience will embrace it. They did last night. The play’s main story deals with two men, Nigel (Lindsay Moss) and Jamie ( Neil Phipps) on the night of their 10th…