Category: Giles Gartrell-Mills

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…

Photo by John Marmaras Red Line Productions and Old Fitz present, DEGENERATE ART, by Toby Schmitz, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral St. Woolloomooloo. 18th October – 4th November. DEGENERATE ART, is a new Australian play, by Toby Schmitz. DEGENERATE ART, is a 100 minute play without interval. An interlocutor, played by Megan O’Connell, introduces us to a group of men, dressed in variations of contemporary schmick black, who have been brooding about the stage as we entered, occupying a Set Design, by Maya Keys, of a wall smear of, mostly, green and black paints (one part of it hung…

  The Old 505 Theatre Company present KNOTS, created by Gareth Boylan, Kerri Glasscock and Michael Pigott, at the Old 505 Theatre, Eliza St, Newtown. 5 December – 17 December. KNOTS is a new Australian play, created by Gareth Boylan, Kerri Glasscock and Michael Pigott. It is, apparently, the third instalment of a trilogy which began in 2014 with TWELFTH DAWN, followed by SEEN UNSEEN, in 2015. At a late stage in this nearly 90 minute play we are, amusingly, told that art does not necessarily have to have meaning. KNOTS self-devised by this company has an arresting text that…

  Sitting in the Old Fitz Theatre in a newly configured traverse space with only a blond wooden floor between my audience companions on the other side, and the lighting changes – a suited figure begins to talk to us (the leader of a chorus?) – a man we come to know as Lawyer Alfieri (David Lynch) – introduces us to the situation and premise of the play in an extremely direct way (no expositional time wasting here). We learn quickly what is at stake in A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. We absorb it carefully and take it into an…

  Ewan Productions presents, AN UNSEASONABLE FALL OF SNOW, by Gary Henderson, at the The Actor’s Pulse Studio – 103 Regent Street, Redfern. 30th May – 3 June. AN UNSEASONABLE FALL OF SNOW is a play by New Zealander, Gary Henderson, written in 1998. It is a one hour show for three actors. In a nondescript room, a table, two chairs, a steel drawed cabinet, a blackboard, chalk, a folder with files and photographs and a bottomless access to coffee, Arthur, in suit and tie, (Nico Papademetriou) impatiently waits. Enter, a young man, Liam (Alex Ewan), in a leather jacket…

  Poor Tom’s Gin presents, WHERE DO LITTLE BIRDS GO? by Camilla Whitehill, at the Old Fitz Theatre (late show), Cathedral St., Wooloomooloo, 30 August – 10 September. WHERE DO LITTLE BIRDS GO? is a short, one-act one-woman play by Camilla Whitehill. Written in 2015, it tells of the true story of a young woman who comes up to London from the country, gets a job in a pub – nightclub – that is frequented by the infamous, underworld killers, the Kray Twins , of the 1950’s-60’s, East/West End. (see MOJO by Jez Butterworth; or Tom Hardy’s film, LEGEND.) Our ‘heroine’…