Category: Roslyn Packer Theatre

THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE was the debut play, from the Irish/English writer Martin McDonagh. There followed a plethora of stunning successful companions to his stage repertoire which audiences looked keenly to see. In Sydney we were impressed with mainstage productions of THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE (1996), THE CRIPPLE OF INNISHMAAN (1997), THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE (2001). Elsewhere in the Fringe theatres, A SKULL IN CONNEMARA (1997), THE LONESOME WEST (1997), THE PILLOWMAN (2003), and regular revivals of the Mainstage exhibits arrived. And of course his film repertoire: IN BRUGES (2008), SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS (2012) and THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING,…

I had just finished my schooling in a traditional Catholic school and was investigating what ‘real’ life was like outside the indoctrinations of that institution, at Teacher’s College and University. I was only 16 turning 17 but even then I had become a cinema addict – escaping real life?, how immaturely ironic, eh? – and although my breeding, of late, was mostly school holiday Disney or Jerry Lewis comedies (except, of course, the free-to-air television repertoire), I took myself off to one of the ‘risqué’ Cinema Art Houses (The Savoy?) I had read about in The Daily Mirror, in Sydney,…

UNGEDULD DES HERZENS (THE HEART’S IMPATIENCE), the only novel by Stefan Zweig (1939) has been devised for performance, by two of the leading avant grade theatre explorers of Europe: Schaubuhne Berlin and Theatre Complicite of the UK, under the title, BEWARE OF PITY. It was first seen in Berlin in 2015, at the Barbican in 2017 and now, in Sydney, in 2019. Simon McBurney of Complicite, working with the Schaubuhne for the first time, has led a team of seven actors: Robert Beyer, Marie Burchard, Johannes Flaschberger, Christoph Gawenda, Moritz Gottwald, Laurenz Laufenberg and Eva Meckbach into deconstructing the novel…

Sydney Festival presents, HOME, Created by Geoff Sobelle, at The Roslyn Packer Theatre, Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay. 9th- 18th January. HOME is a work that was created by Geoff Sobelle through workshops and residencies in four American institutions: MANA Contemporary (Jersey City, NJ), BRIC Art House (Brooklyn, NY), Pennsylvania State University (State College, PA), and ArtsEmerson (Boston, Philadelphia). HOME premiered at the 2017 Fringe Festival (Philadelphia) and has been travelling the International Festival Circuit since, including the Edinburgh Festival, the Brisbane Festival and a stint in New Zealand. Now in Sydney. A group of seven actors led by Geoff Sobelle…

Photo by Daniel Boud Sydney Theatre Company presents, THE HARP IN THE SOUTH, by Ruth Park – Part One and Part Two, an Adaptation for the stage by Kate Mulvany, at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Hickson Rd, Miller’s Point. 16th August – 6th October. A HARP IN THE SOUTH, is a new Australian play in Two Parts, adapted by Kate Mulvany, from the books of Ruth Park: A HARP IN THE SOUTH (1948), POOR MAN’S ORANGE (1949) and a pre-quel to the earlier novels, a late-comer to the Darcy family history, MISSUS (1985). These books tell of an Irish/Australian family, the…

Sydney Dance Company presents, ab [intra], at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay. 14-26 May. ab [intra] – latin for from within – is the first full length work that Choreographer and Artistic Director, of the Sydney Dance Company, Rafael Bonachela, has made for six years. Says Mr Bonachela in his program notes: The creative process began as a series of improvisations where I asked the dancers to be in the moment with each other, to feel and listen – to use their instincts and their impulses and then seek to capture those moments in writing. Those written phrases became…