Category: Belvoir

THE KISS directed by Susanna Dowling, is a staged reading of four short stories, unedited for the stage, by Guy De Maupassant, Peter Goldsworthy, Kate Chopin and Anton Chekhov. What all the stories have in common is the action of a kiss. “They (the writers) reveal a kiss to be a marker of something changing forever; a transgression; a boundary crossed; a door opened…. Each story has a strong sense of foreboding of what comes after the kiss – regret, compromise, disillusion, pain, a loss of innocence.” The four actors, Catherine Davies, Rita Kalnejais, Yalin Ozucelik and Steve Rodgers and…

Belvoir presents THE BUSINESS by Jonathan Gavin, based on VASSA ZHELEZNOVA by Maxim Gorky, in the Upstairs Theatre at the Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney. This is a new Australian play by Jonathan Gavin, set in the 1980’s about a successful business family that is on the cusp of inter-generational change. The heirs, spoilt by the wealth of the hard work of their parents, are waiting to indulge the spree that wealth without responsibility can give. They want to sell up the business and indulge (“I want a yacht!”). But there is still life in the old guard-gal yet, and mum…

Belvoir presents THE WILD DUCK by Simon Stone with Chris Ryan after Henrik Ibsen in the Upstairs Theatre. THE WILD DUCK written by Simon Stone, also the Director, with Chris Ryan, after Henrik Ibsen’s play (1884) of the same name, is a new contemporary Australian play. This adaptation and re-writing, like Mr Stone’s other Ibsen inspired play (with Thomas Henning), THE ONLY CHILD (from Ibsen’s LITTLE EYOLF), as texts, presage a very good night in the theatre. Both of these texts are very interesting. This one better than the other, I felt. And while, if one is a committed Ibsenite,…

    MT productions in association with B Sharp present PARLOUR SONG by Jez Butterworth in the Downstairs Theatre, Belvoir St “This’ll make you laugh. I’m driving over Langley Marsh, where we blew up that cement works last spring. You’ll never guess what they’ve gone and done. They’ve built seventy-eight houses on that site. And every single house is the same as ours. Same layout. Same front door. So I think why not? I’ll stop off. Have a nose around. Being nosey. Pop my nose in the kitchen and guess what? It’s our kitchen. Same units. Same taps. Cloakroom. Same…

Company B Belvoir, Griffin Theatre Company and ThinIce present LOVE ME TENDER by Tom Holloway at Belvoir St Theatre, Upstairs. Tom Holloway has had DON’T SAY THE WORDS; BEYOND THE NECK and now LOVE ME TENDER produced in Sydney, in the last three years, and has successively demonstrated, and with this play confirmed his potential as a very important contemporary voice in the Australian theatre scene. All three plays deal with confronting issues and in a literary style that is poetic and beautiful. Challenging and satisfying. Both substance and style. A voice that is growing more and more unique in…

  Company B Belvoir presents THAT FACE by Polly Stenham at Belvoir St Theatre. One of the major centres for contemporary writing, “ a new writing powerhouse”, in the UK is the Royal Court. In all of its manifestations, it has been, for a very long time. My memory of my History of Theatre lectures, as a student, take me back to G.B. Shaw and Harley Granville Barker dreams of a National Theatre and this building. Certainly the John Osborne LOOK BACK IN ANGER ‘bomb’ resonated from there (1957) and changed what was, then, newly acceptable on our stages. From…