2004
Murray Bramwell

Let’s start with Gulpilil. A project initiated by Festival director Stephen Page and Belvoir Company B director Neil Armfield, this theatre monologue featuring one of Australia’s most distinguished screen actors was the subject of much speculation. There was talk that the rehearsals weren’t going well, that they were taking place in a cave in the Blue Mountains, that David Gulpilil was finding it all too much and had gone back to his home in Ramingining in Arnhem …

Murray Bramwell

2004 would be the Recovery Festival for Adelaide. That has been the received wisdom ever since the 2002 event ended in inglorious shambles. The experience with iconoclastic American director Peter Sellars had been financially and organisationally traumatic.

What especially rankled was Sellars’ refusal to go on what he himself called a “cultural safari” – to bag big ticket items from overseas. Forever at the centre of Euro-American culture himself, Peter Sellars had no notion that festivals such as …

Theatre
Murray Bramwell

First Night

Conceived and Devised by Forced Entertainment
Royalty Theatre, Adelaide
10 March

I Bought a Spade at Ikea to Dig My Own Grave

Creator/ Director Rodrigo Garcia
La Carniceria Teatro
12 March

The relationship between the performer and audience is ever perilous but usually it is held in equilibrium by convention and goodwill. In their high concept, high risk show, First Night, Forced Entertainment, a company whose very name is ironic, sets out to destabilise all …

Murray Bramwell

The Overcoat
Based on stories by Nikolai Gogol
Created by Morris Panych and Wendy Gorling
CanStage
Adelaide Festival Theatre
until 6 March.

Riverland
by Scott Rankin
Based on paintings by Ian W. Abdulla
Windmill Performing Arts
The Space
Adelaide Festival Centre
until 7 March

The eyes have it for theatre at the Adelaide Festival. Toronto’s CanStage even opens its accomplished performance of Gogol’s sardonic story with projected titles – just like the movies. Without a word of dialogue, …

Theatre

Murray Bramwell

Night Letters
by writer Susan Rogers and director Chris Drummond
inspired by the novel by Robert Dessaix

State Theatre Company of South Australia
The Queen’s Theatre
Adelaide
Bookings : BASS 131 246
Tickets $ 58 – $ 20
until 27 March.

Robert, the central figure in StateTheatre’s Festival production, Night Letters, is described as an Australian wrapped up in language. That very aptly describes not only author Robert Dessaix but his aromatic, idiosyncratic novel – part fictional …

Murray Bramwell

Gulpilil
by David Gulpilil and Reg Cribb

Adelaide Festival and Belvoir Street Theatre
Dunstan Playhouse
Adelaide Festival Centre
11 March.
Bookings – BASS 131 246
Tickets $35 – $ 45
Until 14 March
Belvoir Street Company B, Sydney
7 – 24 October
Tickets $ 29 – $ 43
Bookings – Ph 02 9699 3444

We have seen him as The Aborigine, as Fingerbone and as the Tracker, but never like this. I’m David Gulpilil, he exclaims, pointing his …

Melbourne Festival 2003

Murray Bramwell

Football is not the only reason for incursions over the Victorian border. The Melbourne International Arts Festival opens this month from 9th to the 25th. This is the second year for Robyn Archer as Artistic Director and, because she learnt a great deal from her time at the Adelaide Festival, Melbourne is definitely the city to watch – and watch out for. If we, in Adelaide, have a rival for pre-eminence in the festival business, …

2002 Melbourne Festival

Previewed by Murray Bramwell

Around the middle of next month – October 17 to be exact – the Melbourne Festival opens and runs for two busy weeks. For too long, we in Adelaide with our prestigious biennial event, have looked down our noses at Sydney and Melbourne. After all, those once-a-year fixtures didn’t have the depth and intricacy of the Adelaide programs and, compared with our forty year history, they could be dismissed as latter-day clones.

That …

2002
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It has been said that the 2002 Adelaide Festival has been misunderstood, that it was too innovative and far-sighted to be fully comprehended. That its impact will not be realised for years, say some. For a decade, says the former Director.

On the contrary, the Festival was very clear. Its purpose was empowerment and recognition to groups and creativity usually marginalised or colonised by hierarchical concepts of high culture. It was to privilege the local …

My Life, My Love
by Pat Rix
Tutti Ensemble Holdfast Choir
State Theatre Company of South Australia
with State Opera.
Norwood Concert Hall, Adelaide
Until 10 March. Tickets $49.75 and $44.75.
Bookings: BASS 131 246

Murray Bramwell

My Life, My Love is a joint venture between State Theatre, State Opera and the Holdfast Choir. Just the sort of companies you might expect to be involved in an Adelaide Festival. Except that the 2002 program, assembled by Peter Sellars and his …