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Everybody

I was especially keen to see this play, mostly because of the writer and his growing reputation as a force in contemporary American playwriting. AN OCTOROON – 2014 (seen in Brisbane. Needs to be seen in Sydney), APPROPRIATE – 2014 (again unseen), and GLORIA – 2018, which we saw last year at the Seymour Centre. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a subversive writer with a tremendous sense of comedy and balanced political/social critique – he is kind of fearless. EVERYBODY – 2018 – is based on the 15th Century medieval mystery play – EVERYMAN. It tells of the Everyman who is summoned by…

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The Hypochondriac

Darlinghurst Theatre Company presents THE HYPOCHONDRIAC, a new version by Hilary Bell of Molieres’ play, at the Eternity Playhouse, Burton St, Darlinghurst. 9 Jun – 1 July. Moliere’s LA MALADE IMAGINAIRE, retitled as THE HYPOCHONDRIAC, in a new Australian version by Hilary Bell. Moliere is regarded as the greatest playwright in the French language. His acting company gained the favour of Louis XIV (The Sun King) and was protected from censorship and threat of closure as the Theatre du Roi (The King’s Troupe), for Moliere had an unsparing eye to the major pillars of his community and revealed with scolding…

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Measure for Measure, and The Servant of Two Masters

With this year adaptations of Shakespeare’s MEASURE FOR MEASURE and Carlo Goldoni’s THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS, Sport For Jove (SFJ) present their ninth summer season at Bella Vista Farm, and in Leura, in the Everglades Gardens. Lizzie Schebesta, the Director of MEASURE FOR MEASURE, declares in her program notes to be ‘an unashamedly feminist theatre maker and will frack my way into a play to bring out its female voice.’ So with excision of text – even a whole sub-plot and several characters – and much re-writing, with a Design concept (Sallyanne Facer) that liberally borrows from contemporary television…

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Babes In The Woods

Photo by Edwina Pickles Don’t Look Away in association with Redline Productions present BABES IN THE WOODS: Australian Purity Defil’d, by Phil Rouse, based on the good works of Tom Wright, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral St, Woolloomooloo, 13th December – 21st January. BABES IN THE WOODS: Australian Purity Defil’d is a new musical comedy work in the knock-about vein of the traditional Christmas panto, but, in an Aussie style. A very Aussie style. Drought, ghosts/convicts, mine shafts, bushfires, secret rivers and occasional awful foul language. There are some illuminated signs to cue us, the audience, to APPLAUSE; BOO and…

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K.I.J.E.

  CROW CROW PRODUCTIONS and ELIZA OCANA in Association with TAMARAMA ROCK SURFERS presents the Premiere production of K.I.J.E. by Joanna Erskine. This new Australian work, a short one act play by Joanna Erskine, takes its inspiration, from the novella of Yuri Tynyanov, about the invented Lieutenant KIJE, made famous by the Prokofiev chamber music suite (another Russian influence to the Sydney theatre menu, this year!). In a contemporary setting Konrad (Fayassal Bazzi), Irving (Tj Power), Jono (Gabriel Fancourt) and Ed (Wade Briggs) four young ‘soldiers’ as a result of boredom create graffiti on a wall: “K.I. j.E.”, which under…

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