Category: John Bell

Photo by Steven Siewert Riverside Theatres presents Kim Carpenter’s Theatre of Image, MONKEY. JOURNEY TO THE WEST, written by Donna Abela, and Composed by Peter Kennard, at the Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, 2 -11 October. Kim Carpenter’s Theatre of Image is presenting his new work, a version of the 16th Century, three-volume, 1500-page novel, MONKEY. JOURNEY TO THE WEST. The original is attributed to Wu Cheng’en (Ming Dynasty). Arthur Waley, in 1942, published a popular abridged translation in English. It has since been translated again, and seen in many, many stage versions – opera, included, and for film and television. My…

Bell Shakespeare present THE WINTER’S TALE by William Shakespeare in the Playhouse at the Sydney Opera House. Shall I simply write the bare and naked facts of my experience in the theatre: it was good, it was bad; I liked it, I hated it, or, should I try to give an analysis of why I felt that way? THE WINTER’S TALE by William Shakespeare was written in the reign of James I, the Jacobean era. With PERICLES (1607-8), CYMBELINE (1609-10) , THE WINTER’S TALE (1610-11) and THE TEMPEST (1611) we enter the period of Shakespeare’s Tragicomic Romances … from PERICLES…

photo by Rush The Bell Shakespeare Company present THE DUCHESS OF MALFI in The Playhouse, at the Sydney Opera House. The Bell Shakespeare Company presents THE DUCHESS OF MALFI, the cast and collaborators handout and list in the actual program, announces. It is odd that those “announcements”, even the cover page of the actual program, does not register the actual writers’ names: Hugh Colman and Ailsa Piper. No mention of the writer of the original play is claimed or made in the advertising, either (although, the theatre program is an exemplar of historical research of background to the John Webster…

BELL SHAKESPEARE presents MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING by William Shakespeare at the Drama Theatre, in the Sydney Opera House. A set design (Stephen Curtis) sits in the space in a dominating fashion. A giant fresco wall of romantic images of giant mythical figures, the impact luscious at first glance, but on closer study reveals signs of wasting on the edges and hasty repair and ‘gutting’ by a large folding door, centrally. Pieces of odd and ruined furniture spread across the room – a piano of ruined tones and wear, included. There is a sense of a time when the wealth…

Ruminations: THE SEAGULL, UNCLE VANYA, THREE SISTERS and THE CHERRY ORCHARD, the four great plays of Anton Chekhov. THREE SISTERS is my favourite and the greatest in my estimation. UNCLE VANYA is the smaller gem and my next favoured. Both great, mostly, differing only, in the scale of their scenarios. What makes the works of Chekhov a favourite exploration for actors and audiences (especially, if you have the opportunity to see the works regularly, as in Europe, where they are a staple of the theatre ‘diet’) is the endless possibility of interpretation. The fine ambiguity of the Chekhovian text (I…

Photo – Marcus Graham – Pericles   Bell Shakespeare present PERICLES in Association with TAIKOZ. The Drama Theatre at the Sydney Opera House. Norrie Epstein in his book THE FRIENDLY SHAKESPEARE in his discussion of the Tragicomic Romances begins: “Fantastical, superficial, artificial, improbable, impressionistic, inferior, miraculous, boring – or the best: no one can agree on the merits of Shakespeare’s romances. The eminently reasonable Dr. Johnson dismissed them as foolish, and they are. But, in the words of the playwright Dennis Potter, they are “sweetly foolish”. With PERICLES, CYMBELINE, THE WINTER’S TALE, and THE TEMPEST we enter Shakespeare’s final period………