November, 2011

I’m either the odd one out, or the only one in-step. What’s with the current obsession with German playwrights in this and other towns? I’ve lost count of how many plays from that nation’s writers I’ve seen this year, alone. And now, another: this time, from Marius Von Mayenburg. The Ugly One, seen in other [...]

As I was saying to the man himself, there’s no justice in the world when Tug Dumbly can’t get a gig. So it’s with gratitude we must meet The Wharf Revue, one of a few remaining slivers of the sanity of satire, in a focus-grouped milieu that’s lost all perspective and the plot. This year, [...]

Edna Mazya’s Games In The Backyard, I understand, is regarded as one of the best-ever Israeli plays; certainly one of its longest-running. It’s as tough as nails. So much so, perhaps only an Israeli could’ve written it. Of course, in one sense, it’s a terrible gift. Terrible, because it’s based on a gruesomely true story [...]

It all looked strangely familiar. And it was. I’d seen this Trav before; on the Lyric Theatre stage in Brisbane in 2009, an Opera Australia import by Opera Queensland. The same sumptuous costumes. The same grand sets. The same sublime Russian soprano. Opera-goers live in a perpetual state of déjà vu. It is environmentally friendly [...]

Poor, lonely Lotte; also known as Cate Blanchett. She’s a misfit; a gentle, optimistic soul, heartbroken and rejected, but continually exhibiting the courage to continue. Prolific German playwright Botho Strauss’ Gross Und Klein first saw light of day as far back as 1978, long before the fall of the wall, in 1989, and the decompartmentalisation, [...]

Exploring the darker recesses of YouTube one day I uncovered what is no doubt Geoffrey Rush’s least-seen performance. In a webisode of gay soapy Queer as Fxxk, he plays lecherous Lance, a bumbling doctor who finds a patient’s mum is an old flame. The six-minute internet-only turn has a tick over 800 views — around [...]

A strange and somewhat disastrous theatrical experience from writer Lally Katz and director Aiden Fennessy on now at the Melbourne Theatre Company. Alice (Eloise Mignon) has returned to her family home in Tathra on the New South Wales coast. She has been away for what must have been a long time. Her parents (Kim Gyngell [...]

For a cabaret artiste called Meow Meow, this is a performer who has always seemed more of a bird than a cat. She is flighty, constantly startled, her feathers always a little ruffled. The thrill of watching her in full flight — and it is indeed a thrilling spectacle — comes from knowing that she [...]