Category: Belvoir

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…

  Company B presents BAGHDAD WEDDING written by Hassan Abdulrazzak at the Belvoir St Theatre. BAGHDAD WEDING is Hassan Abdulrazzak’s first play and it was first performed at Soho Theatre, London, in June 2007. Mr Abdulrazzak holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and works as a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College. He has, since this play, also worked for the Royal Court in translation of an Israeli play (603 by Imad Farajin) and is on attachment with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). I mention Mr Abdulrazzak’s background because part of the fascination of this text and production, for…

    Christmas and the New Year is hurtling towards us. Have the Holiday wishes from me. I thought I would go back over the year and list responses that left impressions upon me. I hope it leads to some ease of conversation for you. I feel that the possibility for good work in the performing Arts has most to do with the writing.The writer as “GOD”. So, that’s where I’ll begin. After drawing up a rough draft and some cogitation here we go. This is mostly in a chronological order of experience. THE SERPENT’S TEETH by Daniel Keene. Two…

    Company B presents the Ridiculusmus production TOUGH TIME, NICE TIME, written by Jon Haynes and David Woods at Belvoir Theatre. There is a blackened stage with just a lit bathtub in the centre. The lights go down. I can see two men, in the dark, wrapped in white towels, enter, and sit in the small tub. The lights come back up. Two men sitting in a bath, supposedly in a bath house, maybe in Bangkok, tell each other stories. The stories may be factual, they maybe distilled from film, fiction. The men maybe naked in the tub. There…

There has been a BUZZ around this production. I made sure I got there despite my schedule and the uncommunicative Box Office at Belvoir. I rang twice, hung on twice for almost ten minutes and finally walked to the theatre, the day before, to get my ticket. Now isn’t that dedication to my pursuit of a good time? Part of the reason why, may be the reputation of the writer. Tracy Letts, an American writer, is the new flavour of the year. His play, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY first presented at STEPPENWOLF Theatre in Chicago opened last year on Broadway and…

“Oh I love the world! I love love love love the world.” Later. “I love the world. I know how that sounds, inexcusable and vague, but it’s all I can say for myself, I love the world, really I do….. LOVE” Later still… “The dust of Kabul’s blowing soil smarts lightly in my eyes, but I love her, for knowledge and love both come from her dust.” Homebody speaks to us for almost 40 minutes. She then disappears and her knowledge and love become part of the dust of Kabul and Mr Kushner leaves one with ones eyes smarting lightly…