Category: Niklas Pajanti

Lewis (Sean Keenan) is a character creation of Louis Nowra that appears in three of his plays, SUMMER OF THE ALIENS (1992), COSI (1992) and THIS MUCH IS TRUE (2017). In COSI, Lewis takes on a job directing some patients of a local mental hospital in a ‘therapy’ production of Mozart’s COSI FAN TUTTI. This is not Lewis’ choice but one foisted on him by the thespian leader of the hospital patients, Roy (Robert Menzies), and his enthusiasm will not be brooked. The play charts the development of the rehearsals and first performance, hilarious in its ups-and-downs, as it negotiates the…

Photograph by Steven Rhall Belvoir present an ILBIJERRI Theatre Company production is association with Sydney Festival, WHICH WAY HOME, by Katie Beckett, in the Downstairs Theatre, Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills, 11-29 January. WHICH WAY HOME, is a play by Katie Beckett. It is a kind of ‘love letter’ to her father. She wanted, she writes in the program notes to the production, ‘to give him something so he knows how special he is and what he means to me.’ Set in a car on a road journey back to her father’s country a Daughter and a Father remember, reflect…

Photo by James Morgan Daniel Sparrow productions presents, RUPERT, by David Williamson, at the Theatre Royal, King St, Sydney, 28 November to 21 December, 2014. David Williamson’s RUPERT, is his 46th play (a 47th play, CRUISE CONTROL, premiered at the Ensemble Theatre this year). He has had, in fact, nine productions* of his work in Sydney, this year. A most prolific and well seen Australian playwright. Indeed. RUPERT, the play had its origins, as a commissioned work from the Melbourne Theatre Company, under an invitation of the Artistic Director, Brett Sheedy, and premiered in late August, 2013, in Melbourne, and…

  Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company and Allens present AUSTRALIA DAY by Jonathan Biggins In the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. AUSTRALIA DAY by Jonathan Biggins is an amusing, ‘comic-strip’ sketch scenario, a “softly’ satirical comment on contemporary Aussie social and political mores that we, the audience, recognise as part of our daily lives, involving some classic, characteristic, Aussie types, whom we, also, recognise. Transfer your knowledge of the commedia dell’arte or the Moliere character ‘types’ to the Aussie milieu. The highly prejudiced but heart of gold irascible hard nut: Wally (Peter Kowitz); the smooth, handsome political operator with…

Photo: Brink Productions – When The Rain Stops Falling Sydney Theatre Company and Medina Apartment Hotels present BRINK PRODUCTIONS’: WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING by Andrew Bovell a collaboration with Hossein Valamanesh and Brink Productions. This is an outstanding theatrical experience. All the theatrical elements have been so entwined that every moment on stage looks as if it is meant to be there. It looks and feels like refinements of choice have gone on. There is no ‘accident’ on stage. All looks considered and thought through and has the air of absolute spontaneity. The work is powerfully integrated by all…

GRIFFIN THEATRE COMPANY present RANTERS THEATRE production of HOLIDAY by Raimondo Cortese at THE SBW STABLES THEATRE.   When we climb up to the performance space at the SBW Stables you find that the whole of the interior has been painted white. (Set design: Anna Trelogan) Stage floor and walls, auditorium walls and even the further steps into the seating banks. The whiteness is quite a visual shock. Instead of the usual masking black paint there is the nakedness of the white that emphasises all the ugly blemishes of every surface. The production has been showing for several weeks, when…