Skip to main content

10,000 Beers

  Darlinghurst Theatre Company Presents 10,000 BEERS by Alex Broun at the Darlinghurst Theatre. For 10,000 BEERS by Alex Broun, the work, direction by Lee Lewis is most accomplished. In fact, the degree of perspicacity that Ms Lewis has, and is developing, evolving, in all things theatrical, is brought to bear in this work on the stage at the Darlinghurst Theatre. A play that deals with an intensely masculine ‘tradition’ of an end of season alcohol binge, ‘pub crawl’ over a weekend for football players is skilfully brought to realisation with wonderful, imaginative, theatrical resources by Ms Lewis. It seems…

Read More

Bent

  Focus Theatre in association with B sharp present BENT by Martin Sherman. The theme of the 2010 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras is The History of the World. BENT in my estimation, along with Mart Crowley’s THE BOYS IN THE BAND and Tony Kushner’s ANGELS IN AMERICA are the three most significant Gay themed plays of the last century. All three had an enormous impact on the history of the gay and lesbian communities and to the greater community. BENT first appeared off-Broadway in 1978. In 1979 a production, starring Ian McKellen and Tom Bell opened in London.…

Read More

Happy As Larry

Sydney Festival 2010 present HAPPY AS LARRY, Shaun Parker & Company at the Everest Theatre, Seymour Centre, Sydney. Like, but, unlike Michael Keegan-Dolan of Fabulous Beast who brought us GISELLE, Shaun Parker is credited as Director (as is Mr Keegan-Dolan) and then, Choreographer (not claimed by Keegan-Dolan). However it seemed to me that both these artists begin their work in a similar way. Select collaborators and from their uniqueness, their (gifts) develop a work from their range of possibilities and skills, predicated by the Director’s idea or “dream”. In the case of Mr Keegan-Dolan, this Festival, Giselle; in the case…

Read More

How To Act Around Cops

  Darlinghurst Theatre Company & Shaman Productions present HOW TO ACT AROUND COPS by Logan Brown with Matthew Benjamin. Here we have another handsome looking production in a Sydney Theatre, The Darlinghurst Theatre. (See The Only Child; Gethsemane). Jessie Giraud has designed a Set in the black box of the theatre space, that is both aesthetically pleasing (particularly the curious wire sculpture that hangs on the upstage left hand corner) and eminently practical. A car!!- a car that has functional lighting, doors and steering wheel and coverts into other functions, eg a bed in a motel room – most ingenious.…

Read More

Saturn’s Return

    Photo: Toby Moore & Leeanna Walsman – Saturn’s Return Sydney Theatre Company present SATURN’S RETURN by Tommy Murphy at The Wharf 1. SATURN’S RETURN was originally commissioned and first produced by Sydney Theatre Company for its Wharf 2LOUD program. The first performance of the original season took place in August 2008. A year in development since then. Mr Murphy has had a year which has included the play being “workshopped and performed in a rehearsed reading at the National Studio (London)… and a secondment at the Royal Court…… I benefited from stepping away from the play to gain…

Read More

Ruben Guthrie

Photo: Toby Schmitz – Ruben Guthrie Company B present RUBEN GUTHRIE by Brendan Cowell at the Belvoir Theatre. Presented last year as part of the B Sharp Season Downstairs this play has had some re-working, new writing and some re-casting. Wayne Blair’s production has got deeper, darker and more pertinent. Alcoholism and addiction is the thematic subject. In my own neighbourhoods of suburban Sydney and the inner city, the cultural trauma of alcohol abuse, (binge drinking, just one of the symptoms) is almost unavoidable. The consequences both individually and in the wider community are ugly and on the edge of…

Read More