Category: Jethro Woodward

Sydney Festival present, PAUL CAPSIS with Jethro Woodward & The Fitzroy Youth Orchestra, in the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, Festival Gardens (Hyde Park). 17th and 18th January. When one witnesses the talent of Paul Capsis live on stage, it puts much else into perspective. This is the Best Show that I have seen at this Festival and it is the force that is Mr Capsis that makes it so – he is unique, special. He not only has the skills, he has ‘IT’. Paul Capsis is a GREAT artist. Every gesture, from his ‘mad’ costuming, to his excessive wig, and in…

Belvoir and Stuck Pigs Squealing present BACK AT THE DOJO, by Lally Katz, in the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills. 22 June – 17 July. BACK AT THE DOJO, is a new play by Lally Katz. It is as eccentric in its character population and in its structural worlds as any of her plays have been, but, for me, is the best play she has given us. Even better than that other old fashioned but rewarding concoction, NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH, which we also saw at the Belvoir Theatre in August, 2011. Just like that play, BACK AT THE DOJO,…

Belvoir presents a Lucy Guerin Inc and Malthouse Melbourne production in association with Perth International Arts Festival, HUMAN INTEREST STORY in the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St. Theatre. It is all in the timing, isn’t it? Lucy Guerin Inc presents HUMAN INTEREST STORY in the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St, a week or so after DV8 had presented their work CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS? at the Sydney Opera House. Ms Guerin in her program notes introduces us to her and her company of dancer’s aim to synthesise the many relationships between the news, as presented in human interest stories, and our…

“The Pillowman” won the Lawrence Olivier Award for Best New Play after it was presented in London in 2003. It also was nominated for a Tony Award in 2005 in New York. On this outing I don’t think it will be similarly nominated in any such category in the Sydney Theatre Awards. The play is the same but clearly the production is not. This is the painful risk the playwright must take in the collaborative minefield of the Theatre. This play is set in a Totalitarian State somewhere, sometime. When it was done in 2003 and in 2005 in London…

Company B’s presentation of ANTIGONE, a version of Sophocles’ play by Seamus Heaney, is a beautiful version which Heaney alternatively called THE BURIAL AT THEBES. Here at least is a young director that cares about the text and seems to respect what actors do. Alas, Chris Kohn, the director, along with his designer Dale Ferguson have made an error by setting this play in a rundown Community Hall on some undernourished housing estate. He immediately reduces the power of the piece. They dress the actors in down market costume, not clothing, so from the given visual circumstances I can’t match…