Category: Ewen Leslie

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…

Belvoir presents HAMLET by William Shakespeare in the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St, Surry Hiills. HAMLET by William Shakespeare, is, perhaps the challenge, the equivalent measuring stick for a theatre company and its artistic endeavours as, say, Tchaikovsky’s SWAN LAKE may be for the Ballet Companies of the World, or, Wagner’s DE RING DES NIBELUNGEN may be for an Opera Company, or, Beethoven’s NINTH SYMPHONY for a Concert Orchestra. This production of HAMLET at the Belvoir Theatre is an adaptation by Simon Stone of William Shakespeare’s play, for 8 actors and 2 musicians. The original text has been severely edited and…

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD is one of those famous plays by a now famous writer, Tom Stoppard, that every young, university actor wants to be in, or do a scene from. In the early nineteen sixties, having the idea that the King of England to whom Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, in Shakespeare’s HAMLET, were dispatched, was probably King Lear, Tom Stoppard wrote, whilst working in West Berlin, with several other writers on a Ford Foundation Award (as “cultural window dressing” for the allies!) a one-act comedy in verse called tentatively, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN MEET KING LEAR. A seed had been…

Dear Diary, Please view the Belvoir promotional clip, below, before you begin this ‘epic’ entry. (oh, Puleeease, even if it is tongue in cheek, it epitomises some of the attitude in approaching these works that give me an artist, even, moral, pause. Or, is it just my generational elderliness showing, here? I am just not hip.) CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF by Tennessee Williams (1955) is another production of a classic American work directed by Simon Stone for the Belvoir Theatre. STRANGE INTERLUDE by Eugene O’Neill and THE DEATH OF A SALESMAN by Arthur Miller were presented last year. Mr Williams…

    Sydney Theatre Company, Malthouse Melbourne and Thin Ice present THE TRIAL adapted by Louise Fox, from the novel by Franz Kafka, at the Sydney Theatre Company at the Wharf 1. THE TRIAL is the third Kafka based theatre experience that the Sydney Theatre Company has presented to us in the last eighteen months : KAFKA’S MONKEY and METAMORPHOSIS being the other two. THE TRIAL adapted by Louise Fox, from the novel by Franz Kafka is a ThinIce, Malthouse Melbourne and Sydney Theatre Company Commission. The last time I met the work of Louise Fox was the commission by…

  Melbourne Theatre Company presents RICHARD III by William Shakespeare at the Sumner Theatre, Melbourne. This is my third meeting with the Duke of Gloucester- Richard III in the last couple of years. Firstly, the extraordinary one hour ‘reduction’ created by Pamela Rabe and Benedict Andrews, to serve that Director’s particular agenda for his vision of the great cycle of the historic rivalry between the Houses of York and Lancaster in the Sydney Theatre Company’s THE WAR OF THE ROSES, based on Shakespeare’s eight plays, where The Duke was played as a petulant brat- “a monstrous clown” cavorting in a…