Category: Eamon Flack

Photo by Brett Boardman Belvoir presents THE GREAT FIRE, by Kit Brookman, in the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills, 6 April – 8 May. I saw this production weeks ago, towards the end of its run. My impression of the play was that of an ambitious but lumbering four-act play in the mode of Chekhov. It reminded me, mostly, in Australian terms, of Alex Buzo’s BIG RIVER (1985) – another big family saga, set in a big rambling house on the Murrumbidgee/Murray River basin, based on the history of the writer’s own family but set toward the end of…

Photo by Brett Boardman Belvoir presents, THE BLIND GIANT IS DANCING, by Stephen Sewell, in the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St Surry Hills, 17 February – 20 March. The primitive but stirring sound of a muted metal instrument (it, probably, a manufactured electric source) heralding the entrance of the participants to commence action on the Belvoir stage promised an heroic approach to this epic 1983, political/religious family saga, THE BLIND GIANT IS DANCING, by Stephen Sewell. I was flattered to be presented with the dense muscularity of the ideas in the language of the play – it has been so long since…

The Sydney Theatre Company (STC) recently presented a play by Andrew Upton called THE PRESENT, which was an adaptation of an unwieldy text by Anton Chekhov known, mostly, under the title of PLATONOV (1881). It was never published, even read, until well after the death of its author (It was published posthumously in 1923). So, what PLATONOV, can be about, as we have, historically seen, can be very different, depending on the inclination of the Writer/Director. Anton Chekhov’s first published and produced play was IVANOV, in November, 1887. In 1884 Chekhov had graduated from Moscow University as a Doctor, the same…

Photo by Heidrun Lohr Belvoir presents, MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN, by Bertolt Brecht. Translation, by Michael Gow. In the Upstairs Theare at Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills. 6 June – 26 July. Bertolt Brecht was born in 1898 in Bavaria. He was 16 when the First World War, led by Germany, engulfed Europe for the next 4 years. He watched and then experienced the fatal reparation demands on defeated Germany, from the Paris Peace Conference, in 1919, that the victors made, primarily represented, led, by the American President Woodrow Wilson (who also dreamt of the founding of a League…

The Belvoir production of Tennessee William’s THE GLASS MENAGERIE, is the third major production of that play that I have seen in the last four years. This production, unusual to the recent Belvoir general aesthetics – has stayed faithfully to the text as written, using even the American dialect. Eamon Flack, an Associate Director of the Belvoir, last year Directed ANGELS IN AMERICA and there, too, respected the writer’s work, and the audience’s intelligence, to the production’s and play’s ultimate great acclaim. This, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, is an Australian production of a great American classic, without re-writes (STRANGE INTERLUDE), or edits…

  Photo by by Ellis Parrinder Belvoir presents, ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID’S CITY by Michael Gow, in the Upstairs Theatre, at the Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills. ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID’S CITY by Michael Gow is having its world premiere at the Belvoir St Theatre. Upstairs, not Downstairs, for this new work. It is, indeed, a welcome experience to have a new Australian play without any of the obvious trappings, or artistic reputation, of past writers wreathing its conception and promise, on stage, at Belvoir (the usual ‘game’ is coming back, it seems, from what one has read, with the Simon…