Category: Belvoir

In the program notes there is the Bumming With Jane poem by Charles Bukowski and a quote from Doris Day. This play has all the inclinations of the middle class romantic fantastic fawning over the glamorous grunge of Bukowski but with a 9o% feel of the world of Doris Day in its bourgeois sentimentalities (Drunk is romantic. The life of the self disenfranchised is a positive experience especially if you have love to get you through. etc) (Crazy, because even though darling Doris is quoted as saying “The important thing in life is just loving and living.” she always had…

I read this play maybe nine months ago. It is so beautiful to read (in this magnificent translation). I shall quote some excerpts… “I have a baby in my belly. Wahab! My belly is full of you. My belly is full of you. You see? Isn’t it amazing? It’s magnificent and horrible, isn’t it? It’s an abyss. And it’s like freedom to wild birds, isn’t it? And there are no more words. Just the wind! I have a child in my belly. When I heard Elhame tell me, an ocean exploded in my head. Seared.” Some more : “I’m leaving,…

This is a Co-Op production. This play has one actor who plays the HYPNOTIST (John Leary) and has rehearsed it for several weeks with the Director (Tanya Goldberg) “This actor wears Walkman/iPod headphones connected to a wireless receiver–this enables the HYPNOTIST to speak to and instruct a second actor through a microphone without the audience hearing.” In performance there is a second actor who plays FATHER. “The actor playing FATHER can be either male or female and of any adult age. This actor is completely unrehearsed in their role and walk on stage at the beginning with no knowledge of…

    Looks like people are most eagerly anticipating SCORCHED, upstairs at the Belvoir St Theatre. So here are some details… Written by Wajdi Mouawad, translated by Linda Gaboriau Director: Neil Armfield Cast: Paula Arundell, Carl Dewhurst, Adam Hatz, Gillian Jones, Brian Lipson, Ashley Lyons, Lucia Mastrantone, Zindzi Okenyo, Hazem Shammas, George Spartels and Yael Stone Season runs 19 July – 7 September. Bookings online or call 02 9699 3444. This month, have your say about which play you think Bell Shakespeare should produce next. Vote now! –> Pearl (Moderator)

From the Director’s Notes: “I put on classics as a means of expressing the timelessness of particular aspects of the human condition.” Further: “My job, as I see it, both in adaptation and direction is to strip away anything that gets in the way of this realization – anything that no longer speaks to us today – then build up a structure that facilitates the audience’s enjoyment and understanding of a piece that may in its original form have seemed antiquated” – Simon Stone The Set design (Adam Gardnir) consists of what I took to be 9 chicken coops/cages. In…

“The Pillowman” won the Lawrence Olivier Award for Best New Play after it was presented in London in 2003. It also was nominated for a Tony Award in 2005 in New York. On this outing I don’t think it will be similarly nominated in any such category in the Sydney Theatre Awards. The play is the same but clearly the production is not. This is the painful risk the playwright must take in the collaborative minefield of the Theatre. This play is set in a Totalitarian State somewhere, sometime. When it was done in 2003 and in 2005 in London…