murraybramwell.com

December 14, 2017

The Best of 2017

Filed under: 2017,2018,Archive

“When you hear music,“ jazz saxophonist Eric Dolphy once remarked, “After it’s over, it’s gone, in the air. You can never capture it again.”

In varying degrees that is true of all live performances. They have their moment, their season and then are gone. Sometimes they remain vivid, but eventually, even excellent productions and outstanding performances drift into imperfect recollection and generalised hearsay. Maggie Smith once remarked- “Every performance is a ghost.”

I hope this website, for all its sometimes …

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December 10, 2017

Jewels and Binoculars

Filed under: 2017,Archive,Books

Blood Ties
New and Selected Poems : 1963- 2016
by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman
Canterbuy University Press.
167pp. RRP $ 25.
ISBN 978-1-927145-88-3

Dylan Junkie
by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman
Makaro Press Hoopla Series
54 pp. RRP $ 25.
ISBN 978-0-9941378-0-7

It is a harsh fact that we live in a world where there is far more published poetry than people willing or able to read it. Over the past fifty years poetry has ceased to be a common currency. It is …

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November 22, 2017

A grim fairytale for grown-ups

Vale
by Nicki Bloom
State Theatre Company
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
November 21. Tickets: $33- $61. Bookings 131 246 or online.
Duration 2 hours (including interval)
Until December 3.

“We’re weeds,” declares hotel tycoon Joseph Vale, “people rip us out roots and all /But back we come/tough as before.” Vale, Nicki Bloom’s new play for State Theatre Company, is a raucous, grimly funny portrait of star-crossed young lovers, their dysfunctional families, and the inevitable rise and fall of …

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October 27, 2017

Witty two-hander is a duel

Switzerland
by Joanna Murray-Smith
State Theatre Company
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
October 25. Tickets: $33- $61. Bookings 131 246 or online.
Duration: 1 hour 40 minutes. No interval.
Until November 5.

“My imagination functions much better,” the American novelist Patricia Highsmith sardonically observed, “when I don’t have to speak to people.” She much preferred to be alone with words. Misanthropic, prejudiced, witheringly intolerant, Highsmith wrote fiction about crime which was much more than generic crime fiction.

Admired by Graham …

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October 17, 2017

Ambitious drama of a family in crisis offers a moving experience

Angelique
by Isthisyours ?
Presented by Insite Arts and Adelaide Festival Centre.
Her Majesty’s Theatre.
October 14.
Tickets: $25-$37. Bookings : 131 246 or online.
Duration: 1hour 50 minutes no interval.
Until October 21.

The five women who comprise Adelaide company isthisyours ? have been making their particular brand of impish, culturally savvy theatre for almost ten years. But for their latest venture, Angelique, they are not in a makeshift Fringe venue, they have the full proscenium arch of …

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October 08, 2017

OzAsia

Meeting Points : Scary Beauty
Keiichiro Shibuya, Australian Art Orchestra
and Skeleton
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
October 1.

The End : Vocaloid Opera
Keiichiro Shibuya and Hatsune Miku
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
October 3.

The program for OzAsia 2017, compiled by intrepid Artistic Director, Joseph Mitchell, will be remembered for a number of events : Singapore theatre company, Wild Rice’s assured and engaging play, Hotel, stylishly directed by Ivan Heng and Glen Goei; the captivating, absurdist realism …

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October 06, 2017

OzAsia – The Dark Inn

The Dark Inn
Written and directed by Kuro Tanino
Niwa Gekidan Penino
Her Majesty’s, Adelaide
October

The Hokuriko region in North Western Honshu in Japan is commonly known as Hell Valley. This refers to the extensive volcanic activity roiling below the earth’s surface and creating the numerous hot springs for which the region is famous. It is here, as in many parts of the country, that Japanese onsens, or health spas can be found, the restorative springs enclosed in bath …

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October 03, 2017

OzAsia – Accommodating force of history

OzAsia

Accommodating force of history

Hotel (Parts I and II)
by Alfian Sa’at & Marcia Vanderstraaten
Wild Rice
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
September 28-29. Duration: Part I – Two hours 40 minutes,
Part II – One hour 40 minutes.

It is not every day you get a chance to spend two nights in a grand hotel, and this centrepiece theatre listing in the 2017 OzAsia program lives up to its five star ratings. From Singapore’s inventive Wild Rice company, …

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September 25, 2017

Unsettling monologue reflects siege mentality

Rabbits
by Emily Steel
Steel and Brown in association with State Theatre Company and Adelaide Festival Centre inSPACE program
Plant 1, Bowden
September 22.
Tickets: $22- $37. Bookings 131 246 or online.
Duration 80 minutes. No interval.
Until October 14.

“D’you want some tea ? Come and have some tea. Make yourself at home.“ With this greeting, we are invited down the rabbit hole into Emily Steel’s incrementally disconcerting monologue about writing a play. As we sip cups of tea …

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September 18, 2017

OzAsia opens up new territory

Murray Bramwell talks with OzAsia Artistic Director, Joseph Mitchell, about some highlights of this year’s program.

The OzAsia festival which opens this Thursday is now in its eleventh year. Initiated in 2006 by Adelaide Festival Centre CEO, Douglas Gautier, it has progressively consolidated its reputation as an adventurous and diverse event. It draws from all parts of the Asian and South East Asian sector – from China and Japan to Hong Kong and Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea to The …

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