Category: Neil Armfield

THINGS I KNOW TO BE TRUE, has gathered a critical and word-of-mouth reputation. Such, that I was urged to see the play. I did last Friday night. Afterwards, I was just kind of angry, angry that such a great piece of writing had been so bowdlerised in production. Andrew Bovell’s play, for me, Australia’s leading playwright, is a wonderfully perceptive and astringent overview of the Australian Family and the different readings a six unit family have in practising and understanding what Love is within the spread and influence of relentless Time. Dad, Bob (Tony Martin) and mum, Fran (Helen Thomson)…

Sydney Theatre Company (STC) and Allens present, THE LONG FORGOTTEN DREAM, by H Lawrence Sumner, in the Drama Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House. July 23 – August 25. THE LONG FORGOTTEN DREAM, is a new Australian play, by H Lawrence Sumner. On the windswept coastline of South Australia’s Coorong region, in a house distant from the local town, a local ‘black’ man, Jeremiah Tucker (Wayne Blair), has isolated himself from community, intensely absorbed in constructing 18th and 19th century European model sailing ships. The coming of old age – perhaps death – has subtly stirred him to the ‘things’…

Sydney Theatre Company and Colonial First State Global Asset Management present, KING LEAR, by William Shakespeare at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay, 28 November – 8 January, 2016. KING LEAR. Not another HAMLET. KING LEAR. Yippee! 1603. The ancient Virgin Queen is dying and she has tactically avoided naming an heir. The English Government, and hence her people, fear civil war if she has not – a divided kingdom of clamouring claimants. She has lost so many teeth she is difficult to understand and, so, when she lost her speech altogether those that tended her asked her…

  Sydney Theatre Company, Sydney Festival and Allens present THE SECRET RIVER by Kate Grenville. An adaptation for the stage by Andrew Bovell at the Sydney Theatre. It is interesting that the lead credits for this production gives the novelist of THE SECRET RIVER (2005), Kate Grenville, that honour – the lead, precedence, and that the work by Andrew Bovell as the adaptor, for this the stage-version of THE SECRET RIVER, is placed secondarily. This is not the usual practice and I read this as verification of the almost universal admiration/affection that this novel and its related works – there…

  Belvoir presents SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL by Ray Lawler at the Belvoir St Theatre. Dear Diary, This may be a bit of a ramble as my disappointment with the Belvoir production of the “DOLL” mixed with my nostalgic hagiolatry about that play, has caused me some confusion on how to respond. And what I am about to write may cast me further into the shadows, as a relic from the old days, a Troglodyte of the Naturalism School of Play Writing, but my biography gives me some justification. My three favourite Australian plays are: THE SUMMER OF THE…

    Belvoir presents THE DIARY OF A MADMAN by Nikolai Gogol adapted by David Holman with Neil Armfield & Geoffrey Rush in the Upstairs Theatre. My friends and I had organised ourselves and waited for five hours to hopefully get tickets to see this show. We were able to buy our tickets but not until ten minutes before curtain. We became increasingly anxious and excited as the clock ticked forward. Then we were called to the ticket office. It had been a very pleasant afternoon in the Belvoir foyer waiting and chatting to perfect strangers who were similarly patient…