Category: Anna Gardiner

  Sport For Jove presents THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, by William Shakespeare, in the Riverside Theatre, Riverside, Parramatta. 5-7 May. A season at the Seymour Centre, follows on 19-28 May. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW is one of the plays of Shakespeare, that can find itself, often, the centre of deep contemporary cultural-political debate, controversy. Says Norrie Epstein in his THE FRIENDLY SHAKESPEARE [1]: The play’s misogyny, whether Shakespeare’s or Petruchio’s (In the original play the Katherine-Petruchio story is the illusion created for a drunken character called Sly, by some callous young noblemen), has caused something of a problem…

Photo by Heidrun Lohr Riverside Theatres presents A Riverside Production, SHELLSHOCK by Justin Fleming, at the Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, 30 July – 8 August. Shellshock is a new Australian work, by Justin Fleming, having its World Premiere at Parramatta. The play was commissioned by Riverside in 2013 to be part of the ANZAC Centenary in 2015. In the Writer’s notes in the program, Mr Fleming, tells us that it was the Director, Wayne Harrison, who gave him a snippet of fact to ignite the process (of writing): a soldier took home a baby tortoise from Gallipoli in 1915 and that tortoise…

  The Seymour Centre and Sport For Jove present, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, by William Shakespeare, in the York Theatre, at the Seymour Centre, Chippendale. 22 May – 30 May. Sport For Jove present Shakespeare’s THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, at the Seymour Centre, Directed by Richard Cottrell. This play, once a popular choice, is rarely played, professionally, today in Australia – as with THE TAMING OF THE SHREW – and so I looked forward to this production with much curiosity. To prepare myself, I re-read the play, and pulled out of my book collection, John Gross’ SHYLOCK – Four Hundred…

Photography by Heidrun Lohr A Monkey Baa Theatre Company production, THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, by Sandra Eldridge, at the Lend Lease Darling Quarter Theatre. Terrace 3 / 1-25 Harbour Street, Sydney, 18 May – 22 May. THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, is a new Australian play, to honour the Centenary of WW1, written by Monkey Baa Co-Creative Director Sandra Eldridge. Monkey Baa Theatre Company, founded in 1997, has been adapting Australia’s most well-loved stories for young people (aged 3-18), staging and touring them around the country, working with schools, arts and children’s organisations across remote, regional, rural and metropolitan Australia. THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, is…

From THE CRUCIBLE: But you must understand, Sir, that a man is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, a precise time – we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God’s grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not the light will surely praise it. I hope that you be one of those. Act Three. Danforth Sitting in the old wooden ‘barn’, one of the heritage buildings, situated on the…

  New Theatre presents THE HAM FUNERAL by Patrick White at the New Theatre, Newtown. THE HAM FUNERAL by Patrick White was written in 1947. The first of the published plays (1965). The play has had a very dramatic life of its own, in terms of its performance obstacles in the 1960’s, when it was, infamously, refused performance in 1962 by the governors of the Adelaide Festival. Last year, in 2012, Adam Cook, featured it, 60 years later, as part of his last season as Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company of South Australian Theatre (STCSA) and one of…