Handmade is very in. Street furniture gets yarn-bombed, zines are produced on ancient printing presses, hipsters meet for regular crafternoons. No longer the domain of the very young or the very old, the handmade has entered the mainstream with young inner-city types extolling the joys of cross-stitching. It’s an aesthetic that Boy Girl Wall employs [...]
READ MOREApril, 2012
REVIEW: EnTrance | CarriageWorks, Sydney
It’s not as if there isn’t considerable and considerably impressive craft brought to bear in Yumi Umiumare’s critically-acclaimed solo work, EnTrance, which opened Performance Space’s new season at CarriageWorks last week. As far as I’m aware it’s Umiumare’s debut in Sydney. In Melbourne, she’s already been warmly embraced. The Age, for example, has waxed especially lyrically: [...]
READ MOREREVIEW: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof | Star of the Sea Theatre, Sydney
Manly isn’t and will probably be the centre of the theatrical universe. Not even close. But lurking just behind the famous beach and promenade lined with towering Norfolk pines is one of Sydney’s most functional small theatres. Star Of The Sea has for a long time been home base for the anachronistically-named Factory Space Theatre, [...]
READ MOREREVIEW: Macbeth | Drama Theatre, Sydney
He’s a puzzling fellow, this Macbeth. Having shown himself to be brave in battle beyond all reasonable, mortal, typical measure and having been duly honoured for such and embraced by his king, he shows himself to be credulous, vain and weak, succumbing to some airy-fairy soothsaying by a witch (or three) tantamount to the accuracy [...]
READ MOREREVIEW: Breaker Morant | Reginald Theatre, Sydney
They probably deserved to be shot, in the end. It was better for everybody. Of course, only the characters were persecuted, then executed. But it was not even so much the cast, but director (Gareth Boylan, who knows and has done much better; The Frail Man returns easily and conspicuously to mind) and producer (Erica [...]
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REVIEW: The Story of Mary Maclane By Herself | Griffin Theatre, Sydney
Bojana Novakovic’s The Story of Mary Maclane By Herself is as haphazard as the apparently erratic life of its real-life subject. Methinks the talented Boj, who I’ve long admired as both actor and writer, wants this to be a piece de resistance but, while it has flashes of intense brilliance, is colourful, characterful and quirky [...]
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REVIEW: The Histrionic | Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne
The Histrionic celebrates its contradictions. It’s a stinging attack that, beneath its barbs, hides a moving tribute to a damaged man. This production wisely acknowledges both the nastiness and the sentimentality at the heart of the play and is a more interesting work because of it. Bruscon (Bille Brown), our eponymous histrionic, arrives at a [...]
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REVIEW: Infinity | Opera Theatre, Sydney
The Australian Ballet is celebrating 50 years. I would’ve like to have been a fly on the wall for its very first season in 1962 in which, as in the current one, it championed new Australian work. What could be more authentically, quintessentially Aussie, after all, than Rex Reid’s Melbourne Cup? Our cultural breadth and [...]
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REVIEW: Les Liaisons Dangereuses | Wharf 1, Sydney
Les Liaisons Dangereuses will be known, first and foremost, almost inevitably to most of us, through Stephen Frears’ lavishly indulgent film adapted from Christopher Hampton’s 1985 play. The film brought actors Glenn Close, John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer to (even greater) prominence. Hampton, of course, had taken over 200 years to adapt Choderlos De Laclos’ [...]
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REVIEW: Lyrebird | Old Fitzroy Theatre, Sydney
Tamarama Rock Surfers sounds like a backyard operation. Those who are au fait with Sydney theatre, of course, know just how ironic and, effectively, tongue-in-cheek the theatre production company’s name is. TRS is confident enough to tout itself as Australia’s leading indie company. On the strength of this production alone, I won’t be seeking to [...]
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