Category: Kate Mulvany

PLAYING BEATIE BOW is a Young adult novel published by Ruth Park in 1980. Ruth Park died in 2010 at the age of 93. The book has had a staunch readership in its brief history and is a favourite for a few generations of young Australian readers. Both Kate Mulvany, the adapter of the novel for the theatre and the Director Kip Williams are two of those long affected readers, they declare in the program notes. I have never read the book even though I have had a long connection to most of Ruth Park’s work and so am discovering…

EVERY BRILLIANT THING, is a one person play – at Belvoir it is played by Kate Mulvany; on its Riverside season, which follows, it will be played by Steve Rodgers. So a gender fluid role. At the age of seven our actor is told that her/his mother is in hospital. Concerned, she is told by her dad that ‘mum’ has found life difficult to experience. So, in an act of loving support, our little girl begins a list of Every Beautiful Things, for her mum: ‘Ice cream’, is number one on the list. As the play proceeds, the list grows…

Photo by Brett Boardman Belvoir presents, AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, by Melissa Reeves, after Henrik Ibsen, in the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St, Surry Hills. 7th October – 4th November. Melbourne writer, Melissa Reeves has adapted Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play, AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. It has been transposed and adapted to contemporary Australian times: 2018. It is a very faithful set of adjustments and is essentially true to Ibsen’s content and spirit – both his politics and his humour. The original play concerns two siblings, one a Doctor and the other a Politician – he is the mayor of the…

Photo by Daniel Boud Sydney Theatre Company presents, THE HARP IN THE SOUTH, by Ruth Park – Part One and Part Two, an Adaptation for the stage by Kate Mulvany, at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Hickson Rd, Miller’s Point. 16th August – 6th October. A HARP IN THE SOUTH, is a new Australian play in Two Parts, adapted by Kate Mulvany, from the books of Ruth Park: A HARP IN THE SOUTH (1948), POOR MAN’S ORANGE (1949) and a pre-quel to the earlier novels, a late-comer to the Darcy family history, MISSUS (1985). These books tell of an Irish/Australian family, the…

  Ensemble Theatre present the World Premiere of THE RASPUTIN AFFAIR, by Kate Mulvany, at the Ensemble Theatre, Kirribilli. 1 April – 30 April. THE RASPUTIN AFFAIR is a new Australian play by Kate Mulvany. The play is concerned with the assassination, in December, 1916, of Rasputin, a Russian peasant, semi-literate monk and mystic, who exercised extraordinary power over the last of the ruling Romanoff family: Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra. There is a note in the program: Although this play is based on true people and events, some events and characters in this play have been fictionalised…

  Bell Shakespeare present, RICHARD 3, by William Shakespeare, in the Playhouse Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House. 25 February – 1st April. RICHARD III is a play written by William Shakespeare c. 1592, early in his career. The Bell Shakespeare present at the Sydney Opera House RICHARD 3,  a dramaturgical collaboration between Director, Peter Evans and actor Kate Mulvany using the Shakespeare original. The play has been hand-crafted with this actor and company in mind, it seems. This is their third collaboration, JULIUS CAESAR and MACBETH, being the previous two. Kate Mulvany is also playing this Richard 3, and…