Category: Toni Scanlon

STOP GIRL, is a new Australian play, by a Wakley-award winning journalist for the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC), Sally Sara. It is her first play and it tackles the story of Suzie who is a journalist working in the world conflict hot spots of Afghanistan, Iraq etc. Suzie could be a doppelgänger of the writer. On a Set by Robert Cousins, that is virtually an open space with ‘symbolic’ objects that serve the utilitarian requirements of the action of the 90-minute play without interval, has on the back wall a large screen that facilitates video support for showing images of…

  Ensemble Theatre present David Williamson’s LET THE SUNSHINE at the Seymour Centre. Oh, what is all this guff about David Williamson and all the other contemporary playmakers etc? Horses for courses. Please!!! THE WAR OF THE ROSES written by Tom Wright and Benedict Andrews, THE WOMEN OF TROY also written by Tom Wright but with Barrie Kosky (and I presume the up-coming POPPEA by Barrie Kosky from the Monteverdi Opera, Poppea) are worthwhile contributions to the Australian theatre culture. And, I have to say, my very pleasant night at the Seymour Centre on Thursday night gave another worthwhile night…

Photo: Toby Schmitz – Ruben Guthrie Company B present RUBEN GUTHRIE by Brendan Cowell at the Belvoir Theatre. Presented last year as part of the B Sharp Season Downstairs this play has had some re-working, new writing and some re-casting. Wayne Blair’s production has got deeper, darker and more pertinent. Alcoholism and addiction is the thematic subject. In my own neighbourhoods of suburban Sydney and the inner city, the cultural trauma of alcohol abuse, (binge drinking, just one of the symptoms) is almost unavoidable. The consequences both individually and in the wider community are ugly and on the edge of…