A dance response to Bruce Pascoe’s seminal book of the same name, Dark Emu was created by Stephen Page in collaboration with senior Bangarra dancer Daniel Riley, company alumnus Yolande Browne and the Bangarra dancers.
The Belvoir’s choice of Alana Valentine’s The Sugar House, set in the once working-class industrial and port community of Pyrmont, is timely in view of the gentrification of the nearby locality of Redfern-Waterloo.
Pablo
Tropical flowers
and hazy girls
from Valparaiso
drift golden –
like promises
on the edge
of utterance
so almost there
lips open
expecting sound –
instead a petal
drops and hair
tosses like a sigh.
Catherine...
Mary Anne Butler was inspired to write The Sound of Waiting, shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Award for Literature, by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
A one way mirror is sometimes called a two way mirror, a character from Paul Gilchrist’s play of the same name, informs his girlfriend. The object under discussion, a reciprocal mirror, is a means by which people can be observed without their knowledge, and works only when one side is brightly lit and the observers’ side is in darkness. It is a metaphor for something, but what?
Produced by the Mosman Musical Society, the cabaret style Fly Me to the Moon is an excellent evening’s entertainment. The selection and variety of songs from more mellow and less worldly times combined with the enormous talent of this dedicated group assured the audience of a heart-warming, “feel-good” performance.
While An Act of God has its origin in David Javenbaum’s popular Twitter@TheTweetofGod, maybe its inspiration came from the quaintly named “peril terminology”. An “act of God”, according to insurance law, is one without human agency and hence could not have been prevented “by reasonable foresight or care”. It follows then that the divine must be incapable of either, and for an entertaining 75 minutes, God, who conveniently assumes the dynamic form of actor Mitchell Butel, shares with us the full extent of his egocentricity.
On the Border of Things advertises itself as “a bilingual performance exploring the movement of people, agriculture and the environment”, and it is all of these. However, it is, above all, a tender love story and an intimate exploration of art making.
Paul Gilchrist’s Blind Tasting is a much-performed play from the repertoire of subtlenuance, and deservedly so, as it is funny, sharp at times, sad at others and consistently entertaining. Add to this, the charm, vitality and grace brought to this one-woman performance by Sylvia Keays, and the result is a thoroughly enjoyable evening.
A profound and wonderful experience, Barbara and the Camp Dogs takes the audience on a journey from Sydney to Katherine, from anger to potential resolution, all the while sustaining the illusion they are attending a gig in a local hotel.
The brilliant Bangarra’s second Carriagework season, Ones Country: The Spine of Our Stories, presents three new works and introduces three debut choreographers. Each dance tells a story of the choreographers’ heritage, encompassing North East Arnhem Land, the urban wilderness and Torres Strait Islands.
You need not be familiar with the conventions of Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries to enjoy Bloody Murder but if you are, this excellent production is exceptionally funny.
As You Like It may be taken as you like it. A month ago it was possible to see this popular Shakespearean play in Melbourne performed by an all-male cast and currently it is being performed in Sydney as the debut production of the all-female She Shakespeare Company.
Jennifer Haley’s The Nether won the Blackburn Prize in 2012 and stirred debate among critics. Some found it "disturbingly sensationalist", some found it "intensely provocative", and some "squirm-inducing".
Our Future Waterloo was the happy result of a collaboration between Milk Crate Theatre, Sydney Story Factory and the “always awesome Class Six students of Mt Carmel”. From the students’ moving acknowledgement of Gadigal land to their closing affirmation of team work and community, Class Six impressed by their sincerity and commitment.
It is relevant and essential reading not only for the residents of Waterloo-Redfern, but for all people interested in a just and equitable housing system.
The structure of the discussion, unfortunately, accurately replicated the gentrification that threatens to displace the public housing tenants from their homes.
I’d Rather Goya Robbed Me of My Sleep Than Some Other Son of a Bitch, Rodrigo Garcia’s sling shot at capitalism, is expertly aimed by Anna Jahjah, her cast and production crew.
You may wonder what motivates people after their working day to venture out to a draughty hall to take part in a drama class. Given that most people are self-conscious and shrink from carrying out a drama teacher’s demands to forget the self and behave in all kinds of embarrassing ways (pretend you’re a hungry cat, she might say, or fly like a bird) or that most people are appalled by the prospect of speaking in public, why do people enroll in a drama class?
Bangarra’s disturbingly powerful Bennelong gives us a sense of what it might have been like to be born into a crucial moment of time when the harmonious existence of an ancient peoples was ruptured by the entry of an aggressive imperial power.
A powerful piece of verbatim theatre, based on interwoven and edited testimonies, Talking with Terrorists shows the complexity and perhaps intractability of terrorism. Particularly topical at the moment in view of Manchester and Jakarta, the play condemns unlawful use of violence and intimidation to gain political ends but also asks its audience to consider how and why individuals become involved in terrorist activity.
Winning the Pultizer Prize in 2005, Doubt is tightly constructed, topical and gripping theatre. Written in 2004 at a time when the Catholic Church was coming under scrutiny for having failed to take action against alleged child abusers, the play raises the confronting question of what is right action in an uncertain situation.
This charming, clever and very entertaining adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s beloved fables from The Jungle Book is an absolute must for the school holidays. Fast-paced, it holds its young audience’s attention from start to finish, the songs are clever and catchy and a superb cast provides some very funny stage action as well as meaningful moments.
Is an unexamined life worth living? Clearly, Edith Campbell Berry (a vivacious Sonia Todd), the central character of Alana Valentine’s adaption of Frank Moorhouse’s novel, Cold Light, does not think so. Her summation of her own 70 years of existence is that she gave everything to participate but briefly in the making of the historical moment but she “bungled her inner life”.
The frequently performed Under Milk Wood described by its author as “a play for voices” was originally intended to be a radio play. It is, perhaps, better heard than seen but its enchanting mix of poetry, poignancy and sly comedy makes it an attractive choice for small theatres. Overall, Ylaria’s Rogers’s production is well balanced allowing the sly jokes and sexual innuendo to have their place but at the same time keeping a sense of the strange wonder at the universal ironies of human existence.
Initially O’Keeffe, effectively interacting with back projection, introduces us to her family, siblings, parents and legendary Nan through a funny and affectionate home video...
The Mystery of Love and Sex is one of three plays by Bathsheba Doran referred to collectively as ‘The Marriage Plays’ exploring the ways in which socio-economic and cultural factors play into love and friendship. It is indeed a mystery that, given the complexities of our own nature and the complications of navigating cultural assumptions, we manage to have relatively enduring relationships at all.
At the close of Kate O’Keeffe’s Losing You (Twice) the audience seemed almost unable to encompass the terrible irony of the O’Keeffe family’s story. Horror at the relentless way in which events are resolved and pity for the suffering of the individuals involved give this story about an ordinary family from Geelong a classically tragic dimension.
Sixteen-year-old Indigenous Jasper Jones (Guy Simon) is a scapegoat for the town of Corrigan whose parental population are content to blame him for all their children’s wrongdoings.
