Festival Notes
Murray Bramwell
With daylight saving over and the nights, as they say, drawing in, the Adelaide Festival, just two weeks after being squeezed back in its box, seems rather like a dream. But it was not. We do not but slumber here. It happened, and with considerable distinction.
There are a number of factors which made Robyn Archer’s 1998 event such a success. The first is that again, the festival captured the attention and enthusiasm of the city. …
Continue Reading Back to topThe Architect’s Walk
Daniel Keene
Red Shed Company
Arts Theatre
Such was his sense of manifest destiny that Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer, drew artist’s impressions of the buildings of the Reich as two thousand year old ruins. Much later, in an interview for European TV, Speer observed, like a naughty schoolboy, that he was glad the Fuhrer was not around any more. He would not be pleased with Speer’s work, it was all built of such inferior concrete that it …
Continue Reading Back to topTake Over 97
Australian Festival for Young People
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
Come Out has a new name. After more than twenty years the festival and the concept have had a makeover and the Australian Festival for Young People has emerged anew – as Take Over, with a mission, as they say, to stimulate, entertain and challenge young people of all ages from 3-26. Artistic director Nigel Jamieson has taken on this daunting task, mounting a massive seventeen day festival.…
Continue Reading Back to topClaustrophobia
devised by the Maly Company
Maly Theatre of St Petersburg
Festival Theatre
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
In both Gaudeamus and Claustrophobia, the Maly Theatre present us with a profusion of mixed messages. The company, youthful, vibrant and full of theatrical charm performs material which is often bitter, predatory, and seething with cynicism. The vignettes of life in the Construction Battalion in Gaudeamus show a vicious, divisive group of young people brutalised by circumstance. And the closing tableau with the …
Continue Reading Back to topMy Mathematics
Rose English
Festival Tent
Memorial Drive
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
The name’s Charlie and, obviously, I’m a horse. I’ve just been in Adelaide for the Festival. I wasn’t too sure about it all myself. It was my agent’s idea really. Good for your CV he said. You need to diversify, get into the arts more. But that’s what he said when he found that other play for me- Equus.
Well, anyway I’m back doing theatre and frankly it …
Continue Reading Back to topTheatre
A Kyogen Falstaff: The Braggart Samurai
Adaptation: Yasunari Takahashi
Director: Mansaku Nomura
Suke-emon Horato (Falstaff): Mansaku Nomura
Tara Kaja (Bardolph): Takeshi Nomura
Jiro Kaja (Pistol): Haruo Tsukizaki
Yakbei (Ford): Mannosuke Nomura
Omatsu (Mistress Ford): Yukio Ishida
Otake (Mistress Page): Shichisaku Ogawa
Koken (Stage Assistant): Ryosaku Nomura
Fue (flute): Takayuki Isso
Taiko (drum): Hitoshi Sakuraoi.
The Playhouse
Sir John Falstaff is Shakespeare’s big comic success. Hot with appetite, ripe with laughter, he is ego made flesh- and a force of …
Continue Reading Back to topA Cheery Soul
by Patrick White
Queensland Theatre Company
Her Majesty’s
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
On the slowly spinning revolve Bill Haycock’s design could be a retro-chic lunch place. Patrick White’s meticulously described kitchen scene, in cream and red chrome and formica, once embodied the Australian Ugliness, the bland vulgarity of that early Sixties suburban Sydney he lumped together as Sarsaparilla. Now it is aestheticised, wry down-market decor, unable to harm or threaten- as it did White and the young …
Continue Reading Back to topTomoe Shizune and Hakutobo
Union Hall
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
It is generally agreed that the first butoh performance was Forbidden Colours, based on the works of Mishima and presented by Tatsumi Hijikata at a Japanese dance festival in 1959. From there this eclectic dance drama form has been interpreted by a variety of companies and soloists. Some, such as Kazua Ohno, Sankai Juku and Byakko Sha have been visiting Australian festivals since the mid 1980s.
Hakutobo -which means the …
Continue Reading Back to topCome Out, the national biennial youth fest is about to sprout again. For the fortnight of 2-15 May the festival will overtake Adelaide with a variety of activities in all art forms. As always, the statistics are impressive- 1,690 performer, three hundred performances by fifty-six companies. But Come Out extends far beyond this as school and community programs plug in to activities that take place throughout South Australia. In its scope and vision Come Out is remarkable, unique in Australia …
Continue Reading Back to topUncle Vanya
by Anton Chekhov
State Theatre of Lithuania
Scott Theatre
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
Accustomed as we are to mixed styles and hybrid forms, their presence in the plays of Anton Chekhov can still surprise, even alarm us. Few playwrights have had their work subjected to such a variety of interpretations. There have been faithfully naturalistic readings of Chekhov, melancholy, languid ones, giddy comic ones, proto-revolutionary versions, even determinedly erotic ones. Chekhov himself was forever signalling that his intentions …
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