Category: John Bell

I thought, as I sat in the Roslyn Packer Theatre on the Opening Night that GRAND HORIZONS, has a set of characters mirroring the highly successful 9 seasons, 210 episodes, television sitcom, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND (1996-2005 : two elder parents who are abusive and abused – in our case 80 year old Nancy (Linda Cropper) and husband Bill (John Bell), two competitive brothers – in our case married, harried Ben (Johnny Nasser) and hysteric gay son Brian (Guy Simon), and a wife – in our case a very pregnant, patient one called Jess (Zindzi Okenyo). The play has two guest…

Photo by Prudence Upton Ensemble Theatre presents, DIPLOMACY, by Cyril Gely, translated and adapted from the French, by Julie Rose, at the Ensemble Theatre, Kirribilli. 23 March – 28 April. DIPLOMACY, is a French play by Cyril Gely, translated and adapted by Australian Julie Rose. The Ensemble Theatre is giving it an Australian Premiere, Directed by John Bell, assisted by Anna Volska. DIPLOMACY is set in Paris, on the 25th August, 1944, two and half months after the D-Day landings. The Army General and Military Governor of Paris, Dietrich Von Choltitz (John Bell) has given orders following the command of…

The Sydney Theatre Company and Commonwealth Bank present a Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company production of THE FATHER, by Florian Zeller, translated by Christopher Hampton. August 24 – October 21. THE FATHER, is a play written in 2012, by French playwright and novelist, Florian Zeller. It won the Moliere Award for Best Play in 2016 and has had an international life of some reputation. It has been translated into English, by Christopher Hampton – his play, LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES (1985) being his best remembered work. From the Program notes from the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) the synopsis: Andre…

Photo by Keith Saunders Opera Australia presents CARMEN, an opera in four acts by Georges Bizet, Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy after the novella by Prosper Merimee, in the Joan Sutherland Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House. June 16 – August 12, 2016. This is a new production of CARMEN, by John Bell for Opera Australia (OA), opening the 2016 Winter Season. A major event , then. I had had, as a kid, a copy of an old 78 recording of Lawrence Tibbett, singing his ‘swaggering’ Escamillo’s Toreador Song – played ad nauseam , according to my siblings,…

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…

  Bell Shakespeare presents THE TEMPEST, by William Shakespeare, in the Playhouse Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House, 19 August -18 September, 2015. This production of Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST (1611) from Bell Shakespeare, Directed by John Bell, is Mr Bell’s farewell production for the company he founded twenty-five years ago. Mr Bell has played the role of Prospero three times in his career and it is interesting to read in his Director’s Notes, in the program, his debunking of the notion that THE TEMPEST was Shakespeare’s last play and that it is a valediction, with Prospero as a self-portrait of…