Category: Queensland Theatre Company

CITY OF GOLD, is a new Australian play written by actor, Meyne Wyatt – his first play. And what a debut play it is! Writing a play was a plan that Meyne Wyatt had thought would happen in the future when he felt more established as an artist. He was not yet ready. Then, a ‘perfect storm’ of personal events caught him off-guard and accumulated into an overwhelming state of depression that conjured a responding energy, driven by a ‘rage’, that forced him to sit down and write. Writes Meyne in the program notes: So, I did what many first-time…

Photo by Brett Boardman Griffin Theatre Company and Queensland Theatre present, RICE, by Michele Lee, in the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. 26th July – 26th August. RICE is a new Australian play, by Asian-Australian writer, Michele Lee. It received the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award 2016-2017, and this production was first presented by Queensland Theatre in the Billie Brown Studio, in June, Directed by Lee Lewis. Michele Lee has been working around the edges of the mainstream theatres for many years, and this is the first major mounting of one of her works. Nisha (Kristy Best), the Australian-born grand-daughter of…

THE EFFECT, by Lucy Prebbles, I first saw in the original production at the National Theatre, London, in 2012. I have written about it. I, also, was fortunate to catch the ill fated Broadway production of ENRON (2010) also by Lucy Prebbles. Both these plays are challenging examinations in the theatre of very big issues. ENRON has been seen in Sydney at the enterprising New Theatre. The Sydney production of THE EFFECT has been sponsored by The Commonwealth Bank – one can ponder why they didn’t agree to sponsor the ENRON play, too – too big to fail! Both these plays…

  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…

  Queensland Theatre Company & State Theatre Company of South Australia present TOY SYMPHONY by Michael Gow at the Cremorne Theatre, QPAC, Brisbane. TOY SYMPHONY by Michael Gow, glows in my memory from the Belvoir, Company B, production under the direction of Neil Armfield and the luminous performance of Richard Roxburgh as Roland Henning in 2007. So, I was very excited to get to see the play again in a new production. This one under the direction of a relatively new, young director, of growing reputation: Geordie Brookman and with Chris Pitman, a, as before, relatively, young actor seen recently…

  Bell Shakespeare & Queensland Theatre Company Present THE ALCHEMIST by Ben Johnson, Directed by John Bell. THE ALCHEMIST written in 1610 by Ben Johnson is a satire of greed and the follies that ensue from the pursuit of it. The Bell program notes give us a thorough contemporary overview of practitioners we know. It includes references to Christopher Skase and Alan Bond, Bernard Madoff and Peter Foster. Contemporary texts/films of comparison include THE GRIFTERS, THE STING and DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS. Ben Johnson following on from the success of VOLPONE (1605-06) returns to the satire of his fellow man in…