Category: New Theatre

  THE CANTERBURY TALES, created by Constantine Costi, James Vaughan, Michael Costi, at the New Theatre, King St Newtown, 15 July – August 1. If, when you see this show’s name – THE CANTERBURY TALES –  and you think of Chaucer (1343-1400): the father of the English language; the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages, with Royal Patronage from Edward III, Richard II and even Henry IV, forget it. If you think of the 1968 musical version, too, forget it (anyway I’ve been told, great book, now dated music and lyrics). If you think it is some inspiration based…

New Theatre presents, WHEN THE RIAN STOPS FALLING, by Andrew Bovell, at the New Theatre, King St., Newtown. 17 March – 18 April, 2015. This production of Andrew Bovell’s WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING, at the New Theatre left me in a gratified mood of semi-euphoria. I saw the original Brink Theatre production in the Drama Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House, in 2009, and rated it has one of the great experiences of new Australian writing I had had for a long time. Seeing the New Theatre’s more modest production does not diminish that memory in any way, and…

Photo by Bob Seary New Theatre presents SWEENEY TODD, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Libretto by Hugh Wheeler, at the New Theatre, King St, Newtown, 18 November to 20 December. This New Theatre production of SWEENEY TODD is worth catching. This is the fifth live production of SWEENEY TODD, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, A Musical Thriller, that I have seen. It is the fourth production of it that I have seen in Sydney. I first saw it In New York with the original cast, in 1979, with Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury,…

Photo by Bob Seary New Theatre presents HARVEST by Richard Bean at the New Theatre, Newtown. 7th October – 8th November. Richard Bean became a playwright late, at 39. Since 1995, when he wrote a libretto for an opera, PARADISE OF FOOLS, he has finished some 23 works for the theatre. He will be a familiar name for those of us who saw the Royal National Theatre touring production of his adaptation of Goldoni’s A SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS: the comically glorious, ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (2011), last year at the Sydney Theatre. This year, 2014, alone, he has written PITCAIRN…

Photo by Bob Seary New Theatre present WOLF LULLABY by Hilary Bell at the New Theatre, Newtown. 19th August – 13th September. WOLF LULLABY was written by Australian writer, Hilary Bell in 1996. The play deals with the unheard cries of a little child, Lizzie Gael, living in the country regions of Tasmania. A neglected child, from a broken relationship, ‘act-outs’ her emotional unsettledness, with some behavioural transgressions, misread or ignored, by the authorities, which, ultimately, culminates in the murder of a young child. Ms Bell, charts in a collection of scenes these events, and the consequences, aftermath, for the…

Photo by Bob Seary New Theatre presents BOOK OF DAYS by Lanford Wilson at the New Theatre., Newtown. 8 July – 9 August. BOOK OF DAYS (2000) is a late play, the second to last, by American writer, Lanford Wilson. In Sydney, most of you will probably only know his work, BURN THIS (1986), seen at the Sydney Theatre Company with Richard Roxbrough, although other works of his: BALM IN GILEAD (1965); THE HOT L BALTIMORE (1973); FIFTH OF JULY (1978); TALLEY’S FOLLY (1975) have certainly featured at local Drama schools, the latter, at the Ensemble theatre, too, I remember.…