Blithe Spirit
by Noel Coward
State Theatre South Australia
Optima Playhouse
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
It is a strange shift from the contemporary theatrical idiom of Festival
productions like Iets op Bach, Ur/faust and Cortese’s Roulette to the stagey drawing room manners of Blithe Spirit. This is not to say that Noel Coward’s other-worldly comedy, written in six days in May, 1941 and performed in London nearly two thousand times from 1941 to 1946 is not worth the revival. But …
ZZ Top
Adelaide Entertainment Centre
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
After fifteen years, Texas blues funk trio, ZZ Top are back in the country. On tour before headlining at The East Coast Blues Festival they are among the more curious fixtures in the curious world of rock and roll. Delivering basic refried John Lee Hooker riffs, garnished with whatever studio production accessories are currently in the mode, ZZ Top have, with a lot of guile and apparently none at all, always …
Continue Reading Back to topStolen
by Jane Harrison
Ilbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Theatre Co-Operative and Playbox Theatre
Space
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
It is always the hope of theatre that it has currency. But rarely does a work touch the moment like Jane Harrison’s play Stolen. The Ilbijerri Company’s Adelaide season, part of a national and international tour which includes the UK and Asia, opens in the very week when, as the result of a leaked Government submission, Aboriginal Affairs Minister John …
Continue Reading Back to topBig hArt Works
Director: Scott Rankin
Care Park, Moore Street
Adelaide until 17 March
The Theft of Sita
Director : Nigel Jamieson, Music: Paul Grabowsky and I Wayan Gde Yudane, Puppetry: I Made Sidia and Peter Wilson, Design: Julian Crouch and Reg Mombassa
Botanic Park, Adelaide
until 17 March.
The cavernous warehouse venue is lit up with activity. Painting easels surround the walls, a dozen young people hold up their portraits for viewing, a large expanse of red earth is …
Continue Reading Back to topMurray Bramwell
Mizumachi
Ishinha Theatre Company.
Written and directed by Yukichi Matsumoto. Designed by Yuji Hayashida. Music and sound by Kazuhisa Uchihashi and Kazuyuki Matsamura. Lighting by Kiyokazu Kakizaki
Torrens Parade Ground
Adelaide, until 17 March.
Mizumachi is the water city, a floating shanty town in the emerging industrial city of Osaka in1905. Here poor rural migrants come from the Southern Islands of Ryukyu to find work, ekeing out a living along the canals, pilfering iron and collecting junk. Orphaned, …
Continue Reading Back to top2000
The Cure
Adelaide Entertainment Centre
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
With his back-combed black thatch, his scarlet lipstick and his dark drecky outfits Robert Smith, founder and undisputed leader of The Cure, has been the Edward Scissorhands of pop music for nearly twenty five years. It is strange to think that I have listened to The Cure since the Faith album back in 1981 and yet, apart from boppy singles like Boys Don’t Cry, The Love Cats and The Walk…
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