Category: Jonathan Hindmarsh

Mike Bartlett wrote AN INTERVENTION in 2014. He had just had an amazing response to his quasi-Jacobean verse play called KING CHARLES III, which Sydney saw on tour here a few years ago in the Roslyn Packer Theatre. Mr Bartlett is, probably, the outstanding young male writer in the British Theatre at the moment – ‘hot, hot, hot’. The Old Fitz introduced his work to Sydney with a production of COCK (2009) and later with BULL (2013). AN INTERVENTION, is a play for two actors: A and B – the roles are not gender or age specific. In this instance at…

Trevor (Jamie Oxenbould) is a 200 pound chimpanzee, adopted and kept by Sandra (Di Adams), in her home. She is a single ‘parent’, her husband having deserted the home front. Trevor has had a limited ‘career’ in the entertainment industry with his appearance on a talk show starring Morgan Fairchild (Eloise Snape), a one-time soapy star. In this play by American writer, Nick Jones – mostly television;ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, GLOW – Trevor has an anthropomorphic relationship with us, the audience, as he confides to us his view of his life’s given circumstances – his growing frustration with the…

Photo by Clare Hawley Mophead Productions in association with Red Line Productions presents THE HUMANS, by Stephen Karam, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral St, Woolloomooloo. September 5 – October 7. THE HUMANS, an American play by Stephen Karam, won the Tony Award for Best play and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2016. In Yuval Noah Harari’s book, SAPIENS – A Brief History of Mankind (2011), and the one that followed, HOMO DEUS – A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016), he postures the journey of us Humans – us, Homo Sapiens – and talks of us as a…

  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…

Photo by Robert Catto Apocalypse Theatre Company in association with Red Line, present DOUBT. A Parable, by John Patrick Shanley, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral St, Woolloomooloo. 10 May – 3 June. DOUBT. A Parable, the play by John Patrick Shanley, won the Pulitzer prize and the Tony Award in 2005. All four of the actors were nominated for the Tony, too. The actors, Cherry Jones and Brian F. O’Bryne won. It was made into a film, directed by Mr Shanley, with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis – all were nominated for Academy Awards…

Photo by Julia Robertson Thread Entertainment in association with Red Line Productions, present LOW LEVEL PANIC, by Clare McIntyre, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Dowling St. Woolloomooloo. 12 July – 12 August. LOW LEVEL PANIC, was written by Clare McIntyre, and presented at the Royal Court Theatre, in London in 1988. It is an examination of the low level panic that some women may feel by just ‘being’ in the world with the omnipresence of pornography and its possible construction for human behaviour. It traces the re-action of one of the characters to a sexual assault. The play was famous, especially,…