Category: Pete Nettell

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…

  New Theatre present ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE by Joe Orton at the New Theatre, Newtown. ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE (1964), LOOT (1965) and WHAT THE BUTLER SAW (1967) are the three major plays of Joe Orton. All, now classics, timeless in their observations. The form of Mr Orton’s inventions became progressively more and more sophisticated until finally in WHAT THE BUTLER SAW, we have a masterpiece of wit, at a Restoration play level of complication and satire, and a combined dangerous physical farce of the top notch vaudeville stage exemplars. Both ingredients insisting on actors of amazing skills to pull it…

A COUPLE OF POOR, POLISH-SPEAKING ROMANIANS by Dorota Maslowska. Translated by Benjamin Paloff. Adapted by Lisa Goldman and Paul Sirett. Produced by Pete Nettell and Alice Livingstone for Focus Theatre, in association with Newtown Theatre. A desperate couple, Parcha (Neil Phipps) and Dzina (Mairead Berne), claiming to be poor, Polish-speaking Romanians, hijack and kidnap a driver (Kim Knuckey) and his car, trying to get “home”. They harass him in a most intimidating way and in growing ‘middle class’ hysteria the driver concedes to their demands.Later they abandon the car and driver, unaccountably rewarding him with a large sum of money.…

  Focus Theatre in association with B sharp present BENT by Martin Sherman. The theme of the 2010 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras is The History of the World. BENT in my estimation, along with Mart Crowley’s THE BOYS IN THE BAND and Tony Kushner’s ANGELS IN AMERICA are the three most significant Gay themed plays of the last century. All three had an enormous impact on the history of the gay and lesbian communities and to the greater community. BENT first appeared off-Broadway in 1978. In 1979 a production, starring Ian McKellen and Tom Bell opened in London.…

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian MARDI GRAS 2009 logo stands beside the FOCUS THEATRE logo at the top of the program. BE WARNED then, that, these two plays, as performance pieces, have a very specific audience target in mind. Both plays are examples of extreme verbal voyeurism. Both plays have what seems to be a recent Hallmark of Focus Theatre performances, a de rigueur requirement of including “male striptease” and full frontal nakedness, a titillating element of soft porn. (Witness BLOWING WHISTLES and it’s soft porn memories.) I guess if Channel 9 can score audience targets with similar tactics in…

BLOWING WHISTLES is an English play by Matthew Todd skilfully adapted to the local Sydney scene by Alice Livingstone and Pete Nettell. This is a revival of a production of this play after a successful season at the B Sharp venue at Belvoir during the 2008 Mardi Gras festivities last February. The post card blurb suggests that “straight and gay audiences alike will relate to this comedy”. Certainly the gay audience will embrace it. They did last night. The play’s main story deals with two men, Nigel (Lindsay Moss) and Jamie ( Neil Phipps) on the night of their 10th…