“Ten long years,” the Phantom bemoans, “living a mere facade of life. Ten long years, wasting my time with smoke and noise.” The frustration is palpable. Not of the opera ghoul’s lost love, necessarily, but of the puppet-master of global Phantom Enterprises. It’s been 25 years, in fact, since Andrew Lloyd Webber put his stupidly [...]
READ MOREMay, 2011
REVIEW: Fathom | CarriageWorks, Sydney
Dean Walsh is a hippy-come-lately. And the only hippy I know that hails from Mt Druitt. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. There’s a lot that’s very, very right about it. After all, a hippy, essentially, at best practice, is someone who cares about the world and who’s set about to heal it, rather [...]
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REVIEW: Parramatta Girls | New Theatre, Sydney
This isn’t the first outing of Alana Valentine’s play, Parramatta Girls. But it’s a worthy revival and a very strong production, from director Annette Rowlinson, albeit of an over-written play. This is a history we should all know, and Valentine has based her work on real testimonies, from former inmates. Yes, inmates is the right [...]
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REVIEW: How To Kill Your Husband | Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne
Kathy Lette is like, say, rock climbing: I understand the appeal, it’s just not for me. There’d be many who’d say the same about opera, I suppose. So are you attracting new audiences by stitching the two together, as some sort of theatrical Frankenstein, or just alienating even more? Perhaps a bit of both. You’ll [...]
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REVIEW: Sleepyhead | MKA, Melbourne
A convincingly horripilant piece of Australian gothic from Nathaniel Moncrieff, directed by Yvonne Virsik and produced by “Melbourne’s theatre of new writing”, MKA. In this, the first production of their first season, MKA has assembled a really strong team which, true to the company motto, really does put the writing front and centre. What we [...]
READ MOREREVIEW: Baal | Wharf 1, Sydney
Sydney Theatre Company’s new co-production, with Malthouse Melbourne, of Bertolt Brecht’s Baal is akin to the gulf wars waged by American imperialist forces: lots of shock and awe; little material result, other than a lot of bloodshed. In seeking to be always at the controversial cutting-edge, Tom Wright, who’s hands would seem to be all [...]
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REVIEW: The Pearlfishers | State Theatre, Melbourne
Come for the pretty duet. Stay for the sumptuous design and stage trickery. Just don’t expect to feel anything. It’s poor form to quote a review in a review. But there may be nothing more to say about The Pearlfishers, Georges Bizet’s fledgling pre-Carmen work, after The Guardian reviewed an English National Opera production last [...]
READ MOREREVIEW: Tiny Stadiums | Pact Theatre, Sydney
Yes, you’re quite right, fellow pedants: technically, it should be called Tiny Stadia, not Tiny Stadiums. What is it? A theatre festival, of sorts (“live and site-specific art”, if you please), which still has a few days to run, at Pact Theatre, in arty, city-fringe Erskineville. Pact is a centre for emerging, rather than established [...]
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REVIEW: I Only Came to Use the Phone | Darlinghurst Theatre, Sydney
Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco y Bahamonde. Quite a name. Quite a general. Quite an era in Spanish history. It’s in the dying days of his regime that Darlinghurst Theatre’s latest offering, I Only Came to Use the Phone, is set and in which we follows Maria’s horrific journey, after her car breaks down, on [...]
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REVIEW: British Liaisons | Opera Theatre, Sydney
It might be the best of British ballet, but it could hardly be a more eclectic, diverse, or divergent selection which, I suppose, bodes well for the breadth of the Anglo-Australian connection, retrospectively and, dare I say, going forward. All are works well-inculcated in the Australian Ballet’s repertoire: 51st, 34th and 74th performances. Concerto is [...]
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