Look, it’s that musical where the The Kids get up to no good. The one about masturbation, abortion, homosexuality, rape, child abuse and suicide. (Oh my!) The 19th century German play it was based on was banned (as all the best 19th century art was, of course). The one they brand “controversial” to drum up [...]
READ MOREJanuary, 2011
2010 on stage: the best (and worst) from Sydney
One of the most tedious aspects of any breaking year is the retrospective surfeit one must endure. So why should Crikey spare you, any more than other outlets? It falls to moi to bring you a haphazard, incomplete, arbitrary summation of the year in Sydney theatre, despite all the shows I missed. Like theatre itself [...]
READ MOREREVIEW: Open For Inspection | Darlinghurst Theatre, Sydney
It takes a brave little theatre to put on a production slap-bang in the middle of the Sydney Festival and its surfeit of high-profile events, when who-knows-how-many Sydneysiders are away for the school holidays. It’s even braver to stage a full-on musical on its tiny stage, without all the technical and other accoutrement that might [...]
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REVIEW: The Giacomo Variations (Sydney Festival) | Concert Hall
A chamber opera play? What the hell is that, when it’s at home? Certainly not something one stages, one wouldn’t think, in the cavernous concert hall of the Sydney Opera House. But, of course, if the opera theatre is already booked and one has to accommodate legions of fans of John Malkovich, what is one [...]
READ MOREWilliamson on Williamson: he regrets the party, but not the play
You may have read our review of David Williamson’s Don Parties On. You may have heard it created a bit of a fuss. You may have seen the rowdy debate in the comments stream, starring none other than Mr Williamson himself. And you may have read his considered reply Friday in Crikey. His essay on, [...]
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REVIEW: The Red Shoes (Sydney Festival) | York Theatre
It’s fitting (even if only by dint of alphabetical priority) that sound designer Simon Baker’s bio comes first in the souvenir programme for Cornish company Kneehigh Theatre’s The Red Shoes, since that particular art is so pivotal to the success of this production. It’s his design that lends much of the depth and perspective which [...]
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Being John Malkovich, we learn, is a haunting experience
It was as if the messiah was finally playing the first date of his return season. Sydney Town Hall was gorging itself with apparently hardcore Malkovich disciples. I’d no idea there were so many of ‘em. After a stuffup with tickets as monumental as the building itself, we finally made our way to plush seats, [...]
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REVIEW: Power Plant (Sydney Festival) | Chinese Gardens, Darling Harbour
In nature, light arrives well ahead of sound. But when Power Plant was originally commissioned, by Jo Ross, at Oxford Contemporary Music, with Oxford Univeristy Botanic Garden, they both came together, just as they do, for us, for the Sydney Festival, in that urban oasis of peace and harmony, the Chinese Garden of Friendship, anachronistically [...]
READ MOREShort and sweet: the 10-minute plays vying for Sydney honours
Short+Sweet has become quite a brand. Like Toyota, which has Corolla, Camry, God-forsaken Kluger, and other models, Short+Sweet now has dance, cabaret, song and music in its garage. And it doesn’t stop there. But theatre is how, why and where it started, a decade ago this year. The shadowy, enigmatic Mark Cleary presides, Assange-like, over [...]
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REVIEW: Carmen | Opera Theatre, Sydney
Guillaume Tourniaire takes the baton to the Australian Opera & Ballet Orchestra lovingly, to present a refined, mellifluous, but still vital rendition of George Bizet’s unforgettable classic — a production first enjoyed by Sydney audiences around this time a couple of years ago, but finding its origins in a co-production between the Royal Opera House [...]
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