Category: Damien Cooper

Photo by Brett Boardman Belvoir presents, A TASTE OF HONEY, by Shelagh Delaney, in the Upstairs Belvoir Theatre, Surry Hills. July 21 – August 19. A TASTE OF HONEY, by Shelagh Delaney, an English play, written 60 years ago, in 1958. The first production of this play came under the care and Direction of the iconic Joan Littlewood – a woman leading a new way to present work for the theatre with the gusto of a vigorous iconoclast wanting to enliven, and to breathe in an energy force to the experience of the theatre, as a vital life force of relevance…

Merrigong Theatre Company present, THE BEGINNING OF NATURE, from The Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), in the IMB Theatre, at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, Wollongong. 28 -30 June. I love going to Dance. No words to listen to – what a relief! No words mangled by skills under-prepared, by actors, who are, skills-wise, only half ready!!!!. (Take a deep breath, KJ.) Last time I went down to Wollongong and the IPAC Theatres was to see LOST BOYS, the new Lachlan Philpott play, commissioned by Merrigong Theatre Company, and I noticed that the Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), from Adelaide, led by…

Sydney Dance Company presents, ab [intra], at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay. 14-26 May. ab [intra] – latin for from within – is the first full length work that Choreographer and Artistic Director, of the Sydney Dance Company, Rafael Bonachela, has made for six years. Says Mr Bonachela in his program notes: The creative process began as a series of improvisations where I asked the dancers to be in the moment with each other, to feel and listen – to use their instincts and their impulses and then seek to capture those moments in writing. Those written phrases became…

Belvoir presents ATLANTIS, by Lally Katz, in the Upstairs Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills. November 1 – November 26. ATLANTIS is a new Australian play by Lally Katz. It is a heady hilarious piece of a type of magic realism. I loved it. The principal character in ATLANTIS is called Lally (played by Amber McMahon). The last time I met this ‘Lally’ was in Joe’s Pub, a Cabaret venue in the Public Theatre in New York, where she was played by the real Lally (Katz) in her monologue called: STORIES I WANT TO TELL YOU IN PERSON – she had already…

  Photo by Brett Boardman The Sydney Theatre Company (STC) and Commonwealth Bank present, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, by William Shakespeare, in the Drama Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House. 16 September-22 October. How many productions of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM has one seen? Enough to have benchmarks of merit. From Peter Brook’s 1970’s version through to the recent Tim Supple, multi-lingual one, presented in the Sydney Theatre a few years ago. To the Benjamin Britten opera take, to the many, many university, drama school, high school goes-at-it.  The film and television recordings of it. Enough to have almost intimate…

Photo by Tracey Schramm Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) present, SPRING AWAKENING – THE MUSICAL, Books and Lyrics by Steven Sater, Music by Duncan Sheik, based on the original play, by Frank Wedekind, at the ATYP Studio, Wharf 4, Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay, 27 April – 14 May. This is the third production of SPRING AWAKENING – The Musical, that I have seen. I saw the original Broadway production at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in 2008, and the, relatively, mis-conceived production by the Sydney Theatre Company in 2010. This production of the musical based, ‘roughly’, on the Frank Wedekind…