Category: Ivan Donato

Sydney Theatre Company presents MACHINAL by Sophie Treadwell in Wharf 2 , Hickson Road.   Machinal, the play by Sophie Treadwell, was first produced on Broadway in 1928. Ms Treadwell was an investigative journalist and writer. This play was inspired, loosely based, on an actual murder case celebre of the period, that of Ruth Snyder. Ruth Snyder was convicted for the murder of her husband, and along with her lover, was executed at Sing Sing Prison – she was the first woman to be executed in the electric chair, since 1899. The case was a newspaper sensation and became historically infamous…

Seymour Centre in association with Sport For Jove Theatre present OTHELLO by William Shakespeare in the Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre. OTHELLO is one of the great tragedies in the Shakespearean canon. It is not often shown on the professional stage in Australia, although I have seen several productions in Drama schools (in the past few years) and, of course, in the United States. There are many films including, the Orson Welles and Michael MacLiammoir (1952), the National Theatre production with Laurence Olivier, Frank Finlay (1964); Anthony Hopkins, Bob Hoskins (1983) and the Laurence Fishburne, Kenneth Brannagh (1995). (Verdi’s operatic version,…

A WHITE BOX THEATRE Production in association with B Sharp present BANG by Jonathan Gavin at the Downstairs Theatre. BANG by Jonathan Gavin is a really good night at the theatre. A new Australian play. The first act of this play presents a collection of characters and spins a ‘web’ of connection for them all, to a fate at a railway station platform, where just before the interval break, there is a BANG, which is a suicide terrorist bomb explosion. The second act continues the unravelling connection of these characters. It is, on the whole, a very moving and human…

ORESTES 2.0 by Charles Mee. Presented by CRY HAVOC & GRIFFIN INDEPENDENT at the Griffin/Stables Theatre. In the experience of my American life, in the theatre (over there), three of the most challenging writers that I saw and were memorable (for one reason or another!) were works by Richard Foreman, Mac Wellman and Charles Mee. All three write in structures and forms that we, in Australia, hardly ever see explored by our own writers or on our own stages. Although, Richard Foreman has had several outings over the past few years in Sydney (including: my head is a sledgehammer; Now…

  Griffin Theatre Company present World Premiere of STRANGE ATTRACTOR by Sue Smith at the SBW Stables Theatre, Sydney. This play is set “in a railway construction camp….. inland from Port Hedland, Western Australia in the “wet mess” – a featureless space with tables and a bar. The working personnel wear identical uniforms covered “in the red dust of the desert.” (Design by Jo Briscoe. Lighting by Bernie Tan. Sound Designer and Composer, Steve Francis). The play’s action is told in one act, 17 scenes, and uses a simple split time mechanism (the present and a few weeks ago) to…

  Darlinghurst Theatre Company & Drowned 8 Productions present THE JUNGLE by Louis Nowra. Louis Nowra wrote this play and it premiered at The Sydney Theatre Company in 1995. In the program notes to this production Mr Nowra talks of this piece as an “intimate epic” and of “using a small cast to play many characters over a large spectrum of society.” 9 actors play some 29 characters over a sprawling three and a half hours in some sixteen scenes. In THE JUNGLE there are quite a collection of characters living in the Darlinghurst/Kings Cross area, “this is a world…