Category: Arky Michael

GODS AND LITTLE FISHES, is a beautiful gem of a play that the writers control with unerring sensitivity. It is a play about Grief. Its narrative wrapping/content is the recall of a terrible set of circumstances of 1960 that disturbed the provincial blanket of protection that Sydney wore – perhaps, Australia, as well – when an ordinary, suburban Bondi family won the Sydney 0pera House Lottery of $100,000 – a fantasy dreamt by all of us a big cheer – only to have a stranger call on the telephone a month later with a demand of extortion in exchange for…

Photo by Clare Hawley Mophead Productions in association with Red Line Productions presents THE HUMANS, by Stephen Karam, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral St, Woolloomooloo. September 5 – October 7. THE HUMANS, an American play by Stephen Karam, won the Tony Award for Best play and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2016. In Yuval Noah Harari’s book, SAPIENS – A Brief History of Mankind (2011), and the one that followed, HOMO DEUS – A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016), he postures the journey of us Humans – us, Homo Sapiens – and talks of us as a…

  Bell Shakespeare presents THE TEMPEST, by William Shakespeare, in the Playhouse Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House, 19 August -18 September, 2015. This production of Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST (1611) from Bell Shakespeare, Directed by John Bell, is Mr Bell’s farewell production for the company he founded twenty-five years ago. Mr Bell has played the role of Prospero three times in his career and it is interesting to read in his Director’s Notes, in the program, his debunking of the notion that THE TEMPEST was Shakespeare’s last play and that it is a valediction, with Prospero as a self-portrait of…

Photo by Heidrun Lohr Belvoir presents, MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN, by Bertolt Brecht. Translation, by Michael Gow. In the Upstairs Theare at Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills. 6 June – 26 July. Bertolt Brecht was born in 1898 in Bavaria. He was 16 when the First World War, led by Germany, engulfed Europe for the next 4 years. He watched and then experienced the fatal reparation demands on defeated Germany, from the Paris Peace Conference, in 1919, that the victors made, primarily represented, led, by the American President Woodrow Wilson (who also dreamt of the founding of a League…

Siren Theatre Company presents PENELOPE by Enda Walsh at the Tap Gallery, Darlinghurst. Siren Theatre Company under the direction of Kate Gaul is presenting PENELOPE by Enda Walsh. In March, last year, Ms Gaul presented THE NEW ELECTRIC BALLROOM at the Griffin Theatre , also by Mr Walsh, and I presume Ms Gaul is simply following the old adage that when you are onto a good thing stick to it. PENELOPE is another wonderful example of the Irish storytellers ability to spin the English language into fabulous concoctions of delight. This time Mr Walsh stretches into the world of Homer’s Odyssey…

Photo by Lisa Tomasetti Bell Shakespeare presents HENRY 4 adapted by John Bell from William Shakespeare’s KING HENRY IV: PART ONE and KING HENRY IV; PART TWO, at the Drama Theatre, in the Sydney Opera House. John Bell has adapted the two History plays, HENRY IV Parts One (1596-97) and Two (1597-98) into a three-hour ten-minute journey. These two plays were written after HENRY VI, Parts One ((1590-91), Two (1590-91) and Three (1590-91); RICHARD III (1592); RICHARD II (1595-96) but, before Henry V (1599). All part of the chronicles dealing with The War of the Roses. The two parts of…