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Everybody

I was especially keen to see this play, mostly because of the writer and his growing reputation as a force in contemporary American playwriting. AN OCTOROON – 2014 (seen in Brisbane. Needs to be seen in Sydney), APPROPRIATE – 2014 (again unseen), and GLORIA – 2018, which we saw last year at the Seymour Centre. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a subversive writer with a tremendous sense of comedy and balanced political/social critique – he is kind of fearless. EVERYBODY – 2018 – is based on the 15th Century medieval mystery play – EVERYMAN. It tells of the Everyman who is summoned by…

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Kindertransport

Darlinghurst Theatre Company present, KINDERTRANSPORT, by Diane Samuels, at the Eternity Playhouse, Burton St., Darlinghurst, 28 July – 20 August. KINDERTRANSPORT, is an English play written in 1993, by Diane Samuels. Diane Samuels has written: In early November 1938 an intensive series of ‘pogrom’ attacks on Jewish property and arrests of people were launched in Nazi Germany. This became known as ‘Kristallnacht’, The Night of Broken Glass, and has subsequently been called “pogromnacht’ or Novemberpogrome’. In the wake of this calculated violence the British government was lobbied by Jewish humanitarian and Quaker organisations to provide refuge. Ten thousand permits were…

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Babes In The Woods

Photo by Edwina Pickles Don’t Look Away in association with Redline Productions present BABES IN THE WOODS: Australian Purity Defil’d, by Phil Rouse, based on the good works of Tom Wright, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral St, Woolloomooloo, 13th December – 21st January. BABES IN THE WOODS: Australian Purity Defil’d is a new musical comedy work in the knock-about vein of the traditional Christmas panto, but, in an Aussie style. A very Aussie style. Drought, ghosts/convicts, mine shafts, bushfires, secret rivers and occasional awful foul language. There are some illuminated signs to cue us, the audience, to APPLAUSE; BOO and…

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Inner Voices

Photo by Ross Waldron Don’t Look Away in association with Red Line Productions present INNER VOICES, by Louis Nowra, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral, Wooloomooloo, 15 June – 9 July, 2016. INNER VOICES is one of Louis Nowra’s early plays (1977). It is a ‘speculation’ around the  determination of the Guards in organising the succession to the Russian throne. In 1764, Ivan, (Ivan VI),  a rival to Catherine the Great, has been locked as a child in a prison cell, and is, in this play, propelled to a position of Rule through the ambitions of some greedy power brokers,…

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The Crucible

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…

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A Doll’s House

Reginald Season 2014: Seymour Centre and Sport For Jove Theatre Company present A DOLL’S HOUSE by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Adam Cook. In the Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre. 17th July- 2nd August. Adam Cook, the Director of this Sport For Jove production of A DOLL’S HOUSE, by Henrik Ibsen, in his program note begins: Every interview I’ve done about this production has raised the issue of the play’s ‘relevance’ to our contemporary world. To my mind, a classic only survives as a classic because it has remained relevant. In many ways Nora Helmer is a contemporary figure. We read or…

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