Category: Marta Dusseldorp

Photo by Brett Boardman Griffin Theatre Company presents GLORIA by Benedict Andrews, at the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. 26 August – 8 October. GLORIA is a play by Benedict Andrews. Says Mr Andrews in his note in the program: ‘”GLORIA depicts an actress in the grip of an emotional breakdown.’  Performing, onstage, Gloria cannot distinguish her ‘play’ role from her ‘life’ role. Through fraility, both become entwined and a personal calamity ensues. This production of GLORIA, by the Griffin Theatre Company, Directed by Lee Lewis, is an incredibly ambitious one, considering the technical demands of the writing by Mr Andrews,…

Sydney Theatre Company and Australian Theatre for Young People (atyp) present TUSK TUSK by Polly Stenham at Wharf 1. TUSK TUSK (2009) is the second play by Polly Stenham and like her first, THAT FACE, was presented at the Royal Court Theatre. THAT FACE, was presented earlier in the year at Belvoir St. Theatre. The writing in TUSK TUSK is not as strong or as interesting. In fact it is mostly a re-working of the preoccupations of the first play. The story of a family, in this case, three young children, instead of two, coping with an unstable mother, and…

Sydney Theatre Company and Griffin Theatre Company present LIKE A FISHBONE: An Argument and an Architectural Model by Anthony Weigh, at Wharf 1. LIKE A FISHBONE: An Argument and an Architectural Model, has The Architect (Marta Dusseldorp) with her Intern (Aimee Horne) about to take a model of their latest project to a presentation meeting to her commissioners when a strange woman, The Mother (Anita Hegh) arrives unexpectedly in the office. Thus we have the model. The Mother is (unaccountably) blind and wet (it is raining). She has been ‘visited’ and spoken to by her daughter, who was killed in…

This play is, according to Mr Miller in his many interviews, the most performed of his plays. Published and first performed in 1953, during the height of the McCarthy House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), set in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, it still burns with relevance in 2009. When the Deputy-Governor, Danforth in the third act of the play speaking to one of his examinees, Francis Nurse, (in this production, Giles Corey, played by Peter Carroll) says, “But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road…

Several years ago I regarded the best THEATRE company in Australia was The Australian Opera Company. This was when Moffat Oxenbould was at the helm. The reason I thought of the Opera Company as the best theatre company was because of its daring commitment to new work. The chance of failure was enormous. To commission new work and then to mount it was a great risk and endeavour. Especially an Opera, the costs (Size of cast, chorus, orchestra, set, costumes, crew) let alone the possibility of failure were prohibitive but they had the courage to do it. I saw work…