Category: New Theatre

The New Theatre present WHY TORTURE IS WRONG, AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM, by Christiopher Durang at the New Theatre, Newtown, 3rd – 28th June. Luella, a mother, sweet, somewhat befuddled woman says somewhere in the comic chaos of Christopher Durang’s, WHY TORTURE IS WRONG, AND THE PEOLPE WHO LOVE THEM: “You know I don’t really know what normal is. That’s one of the reasons I go to the theatre. To learn that.  … Normal. Its such a conundrum for me.” Go to the New Theatre and see if you can find normal. I dare you. Christopher Durang is…

New Theatre presents PRIVATES ON PARADE by Peter Nichols with music by Denis King as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras at the New Theatre, Newtown. The New Theatre have presented, Peter Nichols’ PRIVATES ON PARADE before, some 25 years ago. John Short was the musical director of that earlier production and is again. During the preparation Mr Short brought to the attention of his Director, Alice Livingstone, differences between the text he had worked on then and the present one that they had begun to “solve”. In her program notes, Ms Livingstone tells us, that she…

Photograph by Bob-Seary New Theatre presents HAY FEVER by Noel Coward at the New Theatre, Newtown. Noel Coward’s HAY FEVER is given a perky and, mostly, stylish production at the New Theatre. Some regard Mr Coward’s plays as, relatively, frivolous pieces of fluff, and, certainly, Mr Coward himself, declared his distaste for “plays with a message”. Mr Coward’s prolific output needs not much introduction, and beside his play texts, has left an extensive musical repertoire, and some curious film projects that still hold some deal of interest (IN WHICH WE SERVE). Of his plays from the pre-World War Two era,…

New Theatre presents JERUSALEM by Jez Butterworth at the New Theatre, Newtown. JERUSALEM by Jez Butterworth had its first production at the Royal Court Theatre in 2009, and then transferred to the West End, London, for a season in 2010. The play travelled to New York in 2011 and played an extended season there, before, once again, returning for a further season in the West End that, also, extended into 2012. The critical reception for the play has been overwhelmingly positive in both world theatre centres, London and New York (and simply laudatory for the actor Mark Rylance in the…

Photograph by Bob Seary New Theatre presents TOP GIRLS by Caryl Churchill at the New Theatre, Newtown. I have always regarded the writer as the God in the theatre from which all other creative efforts are inspired. The better the writer the more support all the other artists have to proceed to build a quality experience for an audience. When the writer is respected and examined to provide the superstructure for the production, trusting the writer’s clues and resisting their own ‘re-writing’ need to personally ‘fingerprint’ the original work, a good time is more likely to be arrived at than…

  New Theatre presents THE HAM FUNERAL by Patrick White at the New Theatre, Newtown. THE HAM FUNERAL by Patrick White was written in 1947. The first of the published plays (1965). The play has had a very dramatic life of its own, in terms of its performance obstacles in the 1960’s, when it was, infamously, refused performance in 1962 by the governors of the Adelaide Festival. Last year, in 2012, Adam Cook, featured it, 60 years later, as part of his last season as Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company of South Australian Theatre (STCSA) and one of…