Adelaide Festival
Theatre : Qui a tue mon pere (Who killed my father)
In his compelling monologue Edouard Louis meticulously describes a childhood ruined by poverty, abuse, and alienation. He blames his father but comes to realise there are also much larger social and structural cruelties in play.
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
In the preface to his harrowing 2018 memoir Qui a tue mon pere, Edouard Louis hypothesises.
“If this were a text for the theatre, here is how it …
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Music Theatre: The Threepenny Opera
Barrie Kosky’s version of The Threepenny Opera has had a haircut and a makeover but the satire is still in there, along with the comedy, and Kurt Weill’s splendid music.
Written by Murray Bramwell
The Threepenny Opera is just four years short of its hundredth birthday and it has had a long history of popular successes and mixed receptions. In Berlin, in 1928, it did poorly when it opened and then became popular …
Continue Reading Back to topI Hide in Bathrooms
Astrid Pill and Collaborators
Vitalstatistix
Waterside.
I Hide in Bathrooms, we are told, by an offstage voice, is “based loosely on a true-ish story” but it is also “made-uppish”. We know from the program notes that this excellent theatre work had its beginnings when devisor and performer Astrid Pill became preoccupied with the notion of the death of a life partner, in response to the experiences of people in her intimate circle.
But it is …
Continue Reading Back to topDescribed as a visual meditation on mourning, Goodbye Lindita eloquently, and sometimes convulsively, expresses feeling and wonder about the mystery of death – without uttering a single word.
Written by Murray Bramwell
“I feel like mourning has a silent, almost suffocating quality,“ Mario Banushi writes in the program notes, “This is why it is a performance without words.”
Conceived and directed by Banushi, Goodbye Lindita may be wordless but it has plenty to say. Inspired, or perhaps provoked, by the …
Continue Reading Back to topThe program for the 2024 Adelaide Festival has been unveiled and it is a first for incoming Artistic Director Ruth McKenzie and general manager Kath Mainland. It promises excellence, continuity and a showcase for emerging works that may prove to be future classics.
Written by Murray Bramwell
“We were both here for the 2023 festival, “says Ruth McKenzie, “but that was the last one for Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield – which went incredibly well, as all of their festivals …
Continue Reading Back to topWhatever you want to call it – Americana, Old Timey Music, Indie Folk, The Milk Carton Kids do it. And they do it very well. Their opening night concert for the Adelaide Guitar Festival is the full bottle.
Murray Bramwell
Formed in 2011, when solo performer Joey Ryan went to a concert by Kenneth Pattengale in their home town of Eagle Rock, California and suggested they join forces, The Milk Carton Kids duo (named from a lyric of one their …
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The Sheep Song
by Jonas Vermeulen, Stef Aerts, Joe Agemans, Thomas Verstraeten, Marie Vinck, Matteo Simoni with Bart Hollanders, Titus De Voogdt, Yorrith De Bakker.
FC Bergman
Toneelhuis, Antwerp.
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
March 16. Until March 19.
In the final weekend of the Adelaide Festival’s theatre program comes the most intriguing- the FC Bergman company’s The Sheep Song. Described in their program notes as “a visual story without words, an epic solely …
Continue Reading Back to topGrey Rock
Written and directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi
Remote Theatre Project.
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
March 10. Until March 12.
We last saw the work of the remarkable writer and director Amir Nizar Zuabi at the Adelaide Festival in 2018. Touring then with his Palestinian ShiberHur Theatre Company, he presented two plays Azza and Taha both of which made an enduring impression for those fortunate enough to see them.
So Zuabi’s return with Grey Rock, under the …
Continue Reading Back to topA Little Life
Based on the novel by Hanya Yanagihara.
Adaptation by Koen Tachelet
Internationaal Theater Amsterdam.
Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre
March 4. Duration: 4 hours including interval.
Until March 8.
It is always a matter for celebration, at the Adelaide Festival, when Ivo van Hove and his company Internationaal Theater Amsterdam return with a new work. Based on the 2015 novel by Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life is …
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