Category: Peter Carroll

Photo by Heidrun Lohr Belvoir presents OLD MAN by Matthew Whittet in the Downstairs Theatre, Belvoir St, Surry Hills. OLD MAN by Matthew Whittet is a play in two parts (approximately 75 minutes long) that examines the relationship between a man and his father, and the same man and his own family. Part One begins with a monologue (not again! See MALICE TOWARDS NONE, I LOVE YOU, BRO and PORN.CAKE), one of several, given with a simple honesty by a father, Daniel (Leon Ford) recounting an ordinary morning that leads to a horrible revelation that his family has gone. Interspersed…

  Sydney Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Company and Bank of America Merrill Lynch present NO MAN’S LAND by Harold Pinter at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. NO MAN’S LAND by Harold Pinter written in 1974, especially for John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson, at the National Theatre of Great Britain, under the direction of Peter Hall (it later transferred to the West End and Broadway), is, surprisingly, having it’s first professional production in Australia. It is directed by Michael Gow and has Peter Carroll and John Gaden creating these two demanding and tantalising, inexplicable characters: Spooner and Hirst. In a…

  Company B Belvoir and Kim Carpenter’s Theatre of Image present THE BOOK OF EVERYTHING. The Play. Adapted by Richard Tulloch from the Novel by Guus Kuljer. A few weeks ago writing about WAR HORSE and NATION, two projects that the National Theatre in London developed, with young audiences in mind , I “boldly” suggested that perhaps the STC could begin to be more enterprising in that area with the special commissioning of such like work for Sydney over our long festive summer break. Well, blow me down, there was I at the Belvoir on Saturday afternoon (after fearing I…

  Company B presents a Malthouse Melbourne production HAPPY DAYS by Samuel Beckett at the Belvoir St Theatre. Samuel Beckett was born in Ireland in 1906. He subsequently lived through the terrible events of the 20th Century: the Irish “problems”, World War I, the boom years of the post war “Roaring Twenties”, the Great Depression, World War II and as a consequence of living in Paris, experiencing the Nazi German invasion, (Beckett said he “preferred France at war to Ireland in peace”), fighting in the French Resistance until forced to return to Ireland. He returned to France in 1947 and…

This play is, according to Mr Miller in his many interviews, the most performed of his plays. Published and first performed in 1953, during the height of the McCarthy House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), set in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, it still burns with relevance in 2009. When the Deputy-Governor, Danforth in the third act of the play speaking to one of his examinees, Francis Nurse, (in this production, Giles Corey, played by Peter Carroll) says, “But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road…

Several years ago I regarded the best THEATRE company in Australia was The Australian Opera Company. This was when Moffat Oxenbould was at the helm. The reason I thought of the Opera Company as the best theatre company was because of its daring commitment to new work. The chance of failure was enormous. To commission new work and then to mount it was a great risk and endeavour. Especially an Opera, the costs (Size of cast, chorus, orchestra, set, costumes, crew) let alone the possibility of failure were prohibitive but they had the courage to do it. I saw work…