Category: Sydney Theatre Company

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…

  Sydney Theatre Company presents THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISSOCIA by Anthony Neilson at the Wharf 1. THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISSOCIA by Anthony Neilson is a play about Lisa. In the first half Lisa experiences a journey in her world of mental illness, of “Dissocia”, (Dissociation). In the second half of the play we see Lisa in a hospital ward being chemically treated for her “mental illness”. This is a terrific play. Mr Neilson through the action of the first half has us experience the world that Lisa knows with her illness. The world in her mind. He has…

  Sydney Theatre Company presents A Young Vic Production KAFKA’S MONKEY, at Wharf 2. KAFKA’S MONKEY, based on A REPORT TO THE ACADEMY by Franz Kafka (Short Story) and adapted by Colin Teevan is delivered as an enacted lecture by Red Peter The Ape to an Academy recounting, particularly, the last five years of his life. His experiences and journey from being shot and captured, caged and transported, and then choosing a life as a variety act in the theatre (rather than in a zoo), which we get to see in little glimpses of tap and soft shoe shuffles with…

Sydney Theatre Company and Griffin Theatre Company present CONCUSSION by Ross Mueller at Wharf 2 Theatre, Sydney.   CONCUSSION IS A VERY GOOD PLAY. It seemed to me to be a play about the World Concussed. We are shown six characters, some of them functioning in areas of social responsibility that were once (and maybe still are) Pillars of the Community: Doctor, Police Officer (detective), and then two more modern “pillars”: marketing consultants, a spin doctor and, sadly, a young representative of the future, “a male potential dropout.” This is a play where people have been given, in our present…

TRAVESTIES by Tom Stoppard was first presented in 1974 at the Aldwych Theatre in London for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Stoppard’s work was last seen in Sydney in the MTC’s production of ROCK ‘N’ ROLL at the Sydney Theatre as part of the STC season last year. TRAVESTIES is a relatively early play by Stoppard, who is regarded, by some, to be one of the great living playwrights. Each of his plays is highly anticipated and highly debated. Like most of Stoppard’s work this is “History rewritten as fiction (and) it is the motif of TRAVESTIES, a work that exploits…

Sydney Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare present VENUS & ADONIS by William Shakespeare. A Bell Shakespeare and Malthouse Melbourne co-production developed through Mind’s Eye.   From Ted Hughes’ Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being: “By the time (Shakespeare) emerged into history… he had written the Henry VI trilogy, Titus Andronicus and two or three successful comedies. His foothold on the stage, as can be seen in hindsight was firm. But he must have been aware that at any moment the stage itself could founder… In the Autumn of 1592, when an unusually severe outbreak of plague had closed all…