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Africa

Sydney Theatre Company presents My Darling Patricia’s AFRICA conceived, designed and directed by My Darling Patricia at Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company. AFRICA is the latest project by the My Darling Patricia Company. “Inspired by a true story of two young German children who attempted to ‘elope’ to Africa. A theatre of imagination conjured from broken toys, puppets and sun-faded furniture. AFRICA explores the complexity of the relationship between children, their families and our society.” Three children are represented, played, by three amazingly beautiful (but sad) puppets (made by Bryony Anderson). We see them in the principal living space of…

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The White Guard

  Sydney Theatre Company and Commonwealth Bank present THE WHITE GUARD by Mikhail Bulgakov. In a new version by Andrew Upton at the Sydney Theatre. On a recent Wednesday morning on my way to the university after another job working in Surry Hills, I decided to get out of the bus and go to the Fox Precinct markets to but some flowers and some organic/gourmet food stuffs and browse. It struck me, on this early winter day, what a lucky life I led. That I could leave family at home in the morning and know, definitely, that in eight hours…

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Baal

BAAL by Bertolt Brecht. Translated by Simon Stone and Tom Wright. A co–production of Sydney Theatre Company and Malthouse Melbourne at the Wharf 1 Theatre. If one cares to check out the Alison Croggon’S THEATRE NOTES blog, you’ll notice an amazing 107 comments following her review of BAAL at the Malthouse Theatre (it even drew James Waites into the fray – and he hadn’t even seen it, as of that time!) It was (is) an interesting commotion to follow, and it certainly whetted my appetite to see the work, although, with all the pre-show publicity etc. , it appeared that…

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Zebra

Sydney Theatre Company presents ZEBRA by Ross Mueller at the Wharf 1, Hickson Road. The design for ZEBRA, a new play by Ross Mueller, has been created by David McKay whose background experience has been mainly in film production design. On stage is a meticulous re-creation of an American bar, THE BIG HOUSE, in some part of New York city. It is mostly convincing and the most amazing element is the window that looks out onto the outside entrance stairway to the bar, which has the most convincing winter outdoor, daylight lighting effect (Lighting Designer, Damien Cooper), aided with continuous,…

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In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play

  Sydney Theatre Company present: In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play by Sarah Ruhl, in the Drama Theatre at the Sydney Opera House. “If Henrik Ibsen and Oscar Wilde had decided to collaborate on a post-modern drawing-room comedy, the hotsy-totsy twosome surely would have turned out something very much like Sarah Ruhl’s genuinely hysterical new work,” (Theatremania). This is a quote from the Sydney Theatre Company’s advertisement for the show. It is a delightfully pitched idea, and I tend to agree with it. Sarah Ruhl is one of the new American writers making a splash, through dint of…

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Before/After

  Sydney Theatre Company presents BEFORE/AFTER by Roland Schimmelpfennig. Translated from the German by Dr Marlene Norst at Wharf 2. 51 scenes in 4 weeks and Schimmelpfennig’s infinitely interpretable text. One hotel room, 8 performers, 39 characters, 41 costumes, 40 props, 110 light bulbs, 17 metre-wide projections, 2 palm-sized cameras, 3 mics, 2 lamps, 2 chairs, 1 porter’s trolley, 1 piano and a bed. A state of mind, a galaxy. Affairs, fears of mortality. Surreality, pornography, a creature from another world. The distance between molecules …and stars in the universe, insignificant. 2 workmen lifting ladders into outer-space, a kiss …And…

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