Category: Stephen Curtis

Photo by Brett Boardman Belvoir and Vicki Gordon Music Productions present BARBARA AND THE CAMP DOGS, by Ursula Yovich and Alana Valentine, in the Upstairs Belvoir, Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills. 2-23 December. “Now let in the love”, are the final words of the song of this new Australian play (with music): BARBARA AND THE CAMP DOGS, co-written by Ursula Yovich and Alana Valentine. It is an irresistible invitation and love is what permeated the tremendous reception that the audience gave this performance/this play. In between the opening song which begins with the lyrics: “Look at the sun and do not…

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…

  Photo by Jamie Williams BLACK DIGGERS by Tom Wright presented by Sydney Festival in association with The Balnaves Foundation. A Queensland Theatre Company and Sydney Festival Production, in the Drama Theatre, at the Sydney Opera House. I saw BLACK DIGGERS almost two months ago as part of the Sydney Festival. I was so distressed with what I experienced in the Drama Theatre, and yet have such great commitment to the ideals of the project, that how to write about it in a constructive manner became a burdensome issue for me. Now, having seen THE LONG WAY HOME at the…

Photo by Lisa Tomasetti Bell Shakespeare presents HENRY 4 adapted by John Bell from William Shakespeare’s KING HENRY IV: PART ONE and KING HENRY IV; PART TWO, at the Drama Theatre, in the Sydney Opera House. John Bell has adapted the two History plays, HENRY IV Parts One (1596-97) and Two (1597-98) into a three-hour ten-minute journey. These two plays were written after HENRY VI, Parts One ((1590-91), Two (1590-91) and Three (1590-91); RICHARD III (1592); RICHARD II (1595-96) but, before Henry V (1599). All part of the chronicles dealing with The War of the Roses. The two parts of…

  Sydney Theatre Company, Sydney Festival and Allens present THE SECRET RIVER by Kate Grenville. An adaptation for the stage by Andrew Bovell at the Sydney Theatre. It is interesting that the lead credits for this production gives the novelist of THE SECRET RIVER (2005), Kate Grenville, that honour – the lead, precedence, and that the work by Andrew Bovell as the adaptor, for this the stage-version of THE SECRET RIVER, is placed secondarily. This is not the usual practice and I read this as verification of the almost universal admiration/affection that this novel and its related works – there…

photo by Rush The Bell Shakespeare Company present THE DUCHESS OF MALFI in The Playhouse, at the Sydney Opera House. The Bell Shakespeare Company presents THE DUCHESS OF MALFI, the cast and collaborators handout and list in the actual program, announces. It is odd that those “announcements”, even the cover page of the actual program, does not register the actual writers’ names: Hugh Colman and Ailsa Piper. No mention of the writer of the original play is claimed or made in the advertising, either (although, the theatre program is an exemplar of historical research of background to the John Webster…