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Table

TABLE, is a 2013 play by British playwright, Tanya Ronder. David Best builds a table in London somewhere. It is later taken to Tanganyika, by a family member, Sarah, as part of her missionary ‘dowry’. It shares in the ‘adventures’ of this family and in due course returns to South London. A table, six generations. A table that witnesses the dramas and triumphs of the family Best. The play is a neat old-fashioned evening and has the talents of the actors playing 23 different characters over a century or more to bring it passionately to life. Julian Garner is most…

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The Harp in the South

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…

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The Rolling Stone

Photo by Clare Hawley Outhouse Theatre Co and the Seymour Centre presents, THE ROLLING STONE, by Chris Urch, in the Reginald Theatre, at the Seymour Centre, Chippendale. 5th – 21st July. THE ROLLING STONE is an Award winning British play, by Chris Urch, written in 2014. This play is set in Uganda, and concerns the dilemmas of a fundamental Christian family: three siblings, Dembe (Elijah Williams), his sister, Wummie (Zufi Emerson), both promising students, and Pastor brother, Joe (Mandela Mathia), when the youngest, 18 year old Dembe, realises his homosexuality. By Ugandan law it is the family’s duty to denounce…

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The Trouble With Harry

THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY, is a new play from Lachlan Philpott. It had its premiere season in Belfast in 2013 and played last year in Melbourne. Written in a kind of open verse style with a duo of actors narrating as a Greek Chorus (Thomas Campbell, Niki Owen) and interacting as minor characters, four other actors embody the major characters to tell the story of Harry Crawford in the working class suburbs of Sydney in the early years of the last century. In virtual poverty, Annie Birkett (Jane Phegan) cares for a house for her son, Harry (Jonas Thomson), and…

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BU21

Photo by Rupert Reid Outhouse Theatre Co presents, BU21, by Stuart Slade, at the Old 505, Eliza St. Newtown, 9 February – 25 February. BU21 is a play by British writer, Stuart Slade, first produced in March, 2016, in Bristol and then in London, in February, 2017. It concerns the downing, the shooting down of a plane, BU21, by a rocket missile, over the suburbs of London – into posh Fulham. We meet six survivors of this act of terrorism who appear on stage and welcome us and directly contact us – no fourth wall here – talking eye-to-eye to…

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I Hate You My Mother

Photo by Rupert Reid Real Harpy, White Box Theatre in Association with Red Line Productions present, I HATE YOU MY MOTHER, by Jeanette Cronin, at the Old Fitz Theatre, Cathedral St. Woolloomooloo, 24 January – 11 February. I HATE YOU MY MOTHER, is a new play by Jeanette Cronin. Ms Cronin is well loved and respected as an actor, especially, in Sydney. In 2014, Ms Cronin presented her first play as a writer: TELL ME AGAIN, which was followed up a year later with QUEEN BETTE. I enjoyed them very much. In each Ms Cronin also starred. Her third play, I…

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