July, 2012

Stephen Page has put his own genius to one side in commissioning Frances Rings to produce Terrain for Bangarra Dance Theatre. True to the company’s name, this work weaves narrative and and physical expression into an impressionistic vision of the timeless power and enduring sanctity of Lake Eyre, better known to its traditional owners, the [...]

The reconciliation movement is full of traps. It’s far more than Kevin Rudd saying “sorry”, or a sea of hands, or cheerful populist rallies. In practice, when it comes down to the one-to-one level, it’s too easy to get it wrong, especially for the naive do-gooder with the best of intentions. In this enchanting but [...]

Sydney’s loss was Brisbane’s gain, for when Margi Brown Ash made the big move 24 years ago, Brisbane gained a theatre performer of prestigious talent and a unique imagination. She and Leah Mercer formed a company called the nest ensemble which gave the world The Knowing of Mary Poppins, which toured nationally and won three [...]

With a name like Conor McPherson, one hardly need point out we’re talking about an Irish playwright. An acclaimed, Tony Award-winning Irish playwright and director. In fact, the Tony was won for this very play, now in its Australian premiere, at Darlinghurst Theatre; a co-production between same and O’Punksky’s. To be sure, to be sure, [...]

Lotte Lenya? Of course. But Agnes Bernelle? Who is she? One of the Weimar Republic generation, she fled Berlin as a teenager and spent the war in London as an anti-Nazi propagandist with the British Special Operations Unit, famously convincing the commander of a German U-boat to surrender by broadcasting a made-up message to him, [...]

Three hours and 15 minutes, with nary a finger sandwich on which to subsist. Such are the challenges, trials and tribulations of the opera reviewer. That and wearing a monkey-suit, even in summer. Happily, the clear, cool evening Sydney presented justified the satin-collared suit. But the pace of life didn’t permit an early dinner before [...]

Stop. Rewind. Who hasn’t wanted to do that? To beam up, from a difficult situation. To hold everything and call Dick Tracy. It’s unobtainable and, as such, highly desirable. And an ingenious premise for a play which (with some poetic licence, but not so very much) examines the miserably, unrelentingly mundane, workaday lives of a [...]

I’ll make a prediction: Dino Dimitriadis will soon be the new Benedict Andrews, Simon Stone or Sam Strong. Cool. Fashionable. Brimming with ideas and energy. In demand. Coveted. Almost invincible (Andrews recently put the almost in front of the invincible). If I were any of those three amigos, I’d be worried about directors like Dino [...]

In any word association test, say Bizet and you’ll get Carmen. But a decade before there was The Pearlfishers. Just as Carmen has an exotic setting, historically and geographically, so too is this opera, but in Ceylon, with Hindu iconography to match. Indeed, John Conklin’s design is quite magical, painterly and superbly evocative: scenes and [...]

The Duchess of Malfi isn’t by Shakespeare. But it’s close. Written by John Webster in 1612, around the time ye olde Bill was about ready to be pensioned off, it’s the first time Bell Shakespeare has produced one of his plays which, as it happens, was an instant runaway success in its day and is [...]