All the world’s a stage. Even Bella Vista Farm, apparently. And what better bucolic setting than 20 hectares of not entirely uninterrupted rural landscape, in the garden shire, for Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy? The strangely named Sport For Jove Theatre Company has embarked on an ambitious programme of Shakespeare, including Sydney Hills Shakespeare In The Park, [...]
READ MOREDecember, 2010
REVIEW: Wish I’d Said That | Ensemble Theatre, Sydney
By dint of what’s almost certainly his best-known role (as Robbie, in Geoffrey Atherden’s Mother & Son) some people though he was a dentist, which gave him ammo for an earlier play. This time, Henri Szeps, a little older, has a different focus. Even amidst his incurable penchant for gags, his intentions seem earnest, serious, [...]
READ MOREVaudeville vamp, cabaret chanteuse, burlesque babe: the cabaret of Speakeasy
She’s not the messiah. She’s a very naughty girl. Well, I’m sure that’s how she started out. She’s grown-up quite a lot since then and now cracks a big whip, if her polyurethane hot-pantsuit is anything to go by. She can be pretty demanding of her dear old dad and I’m sure it’s always been [...]
READ MORE
Theatre for Christmas: your guide to the 2011 stage season
The whole world’s a stage, and there’s a whole world of entertainment on stages across the country in 2011. Give the gift that keeps on giving: season tickets to your local theatre company. The new season holds much promise, with new artistic directors in place at some of the country’s top companies delivering an eclectic [...]
READ MOREA new broom, a new guard: theatre’s generation next
As Ben Eltham wrote for Crikey on Friday: A new broom is sweeping through Australia’s theatre and dance companies. This week’s announcement that the artistic director of Melbourne dance company Chunky Move, Gideon Obazanek, will step down in 2011 is just the latest in a series of major transitions for Australia’s medium-sized theatre and dance [...]
READ MORE
REVIEW: Last Of The Red Hot Lovers | Ensemble Theatre, Sydney
One of the most edifying and enjoyable aspects of a Neil Simon play, aside from his affinity with the failings and foibles of humanity at large, is his judgement as a writer. There’s never any obvious sense of contrivance. It’s never over-written, or written in an ‘aren’t I clever?!’ kind of way. If it has [...]
READ MORE
REVIEW: The Nutcracker | Opera Theatre, Sydney
Attempting a classic must, surely, always be a fraught and nerve-wracking business for any arts company. When said company happens to reside down under, literally in the shadow of the old world, it becomes what Avis in ’60s America was: number two, so it has to try harder, just in case there are those in [...]
READ MORE
REVIEW: A Midsummer Night’s Dream | State Theatre, Melbourne
Overheard at interval: Opera patron 1: “So, what do you think?” Opera patron 2: “It’s…different.” Opera patron 1: “It’s Benjamin Britten!” Well, indeed. To not even mention William Shakespeare. Or Baz Luhrmann, no less. ‘Different’ doesn’t begin to describe it.
READ MORECultural exchange: China’s orchestra makes absorbing music
I can’t pretend I’m in any way expert, or even knowledgeable, as regards to Chinese music of any kind. Perhaps the Ruddbot, or Edmund Capon, should be writing this review; incurable sinophiles both. The truth is the approximate sum-total of my experience of Chinese folk or classical music would most probably be gleaned from restaurants [...]
READ MORE
Opera float: national company looks for new harbour-side fans
The way Lyndon Terracini sees it, there’s some sort of middle ground in the battle for bums (on seats); an axis at which the finer arts develop a pop following. The Dutch fiddler effect, if you will. “It will have a very, very broad appeal in the same way an André Rieu concert has,” Opera [...]
READ MORE
