Category: Benjamin Brockman

The Darlinghurst Theatre Company has curated a play written by a black British writer – playwright, poet -/performance artist/theatre maker, Travis Alabanza (they/them) called OVERFLOW (2020). Set in a fashionable gleaming night club bathroom we meet a trans femme, Rosie (Janet Aderson (she/her), who has locked herself in the bathroom and begins talking of ‘the joy of the pre-emptive piss’ that leads to many further anecdotal recall of the personal distress she has experienced in such spaces – this politically sensitive liminal space – that emotionally triggers a reaction that causes her to block the sinks, toilet and floor drain with…

Oliver Schermacher remembers: Matthew Lee travelling in a car from Canberra with musician Oliver Shermacher,  when he hears for the first time Hector Berlioz’s SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE, at full blast – bopping in my seat and enthusiastically head-banging to Berlioz’ erratic and colorful music. Mat became intrigued when I described its deranged story and the eye-brow raising background of the piece as a love letter to a woman he had never met. Though Berlioz did stalk and woo her for seven years, finally threatening to over dose on heroin, before she, actress Harriet Smithson, capitulated and married him. (Ultimately, of course,…

This is a revival production of SPLINTER, by Australian writer, Hilary Bell. It was first produced by The Sydney Theatre Company (STC), in 2012. Man (Simon Gleeson) and Woman (Lucy Bell), husband and wife, have just had their daughter Laura returned to them. She had been absent for nine months. No-one knows where she has been or what has happened. The play begins in a mood of wonder and excitement. Also, disbelief. Are they laughing or crying? Is it a dream? Is it real? Laura has not spoken. She is an enigma. In the original production at the STC Laura,…

HERRINGBONE – A Vaudeville Ghost Story, is a work by Tom Cone. With Music by Skip Kennon and Lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh. It first appeared in 1981 and this is its Australian Premiere. It is a one man performance. Jay James-Moody takes on its mantle. For ninety minutes he sings – 14 songs – and dances everything. He gets to create and play and sustain 11 characters. SYBIL (1976), may pop into your mind. Or even the recent SPLIT (2017), may do, too, such are the amazing number of ‘possessions’ that Mr James-Moody delivers in this production. A ghost wearing…

bAKEHOUSE Theatre Company presents the World Premiere of DRESDEN, by Justin Fleming, at the Kings Cross Theatre (KXT), Kings Cross Hotel. !5 – 30 June. DRESDEN is a new Australian play by Justin Fleming. August Kubizek, remembers attending a performance of Richard Wagner’s opera RIENZI, der Letzte der Tribunen (the last of the Tribunes), of 1838-40, in the relatively new Opera House, the Konigliches Hoftheater, in Dresden, with his young 17 year old friend, Adolf Hitler, in 1906. The libretto was written by Wagner, based on the book by British novelist, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and tells the story of Rienzi, a…

Oriel Entertainment Group, Progeny Pictures and Orange Sky Creative, present CARMEN LIVE OR DEAD. Book by Craig Harwood. Composer and Lyricist iOTA, at the Hayes Theatre, Greenknowe Ave, Darlinghurst. 28 April – 6 May. CARMEN Live or Dead is a Music/Theatre piece conceived by Greg Harwood and Natalie Gamsu and has a Book by Greg Harwood, with Music and Lyrics, mostly, by iOTA. The work introduces us to Carmen Frida Leon Davidovich (Natalie Gamsu), the (fictional) love child of Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky. It is on the last day of her life and Carmen takes us on a reflective…