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March 06, 2023

Tragic Lifelines

Filed under: 2023,Archive,Festival,International,Theatre

A 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.


Ramsey Nasr, Steven Van Watermeulen and Hans Kesting. Photo: Adam Forte

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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Dystopian reality and the wars within

Filed under: 2023,Archive,Festival,International,Theatre

Murray Bramwell

Adelaide Festival
Theatre

Dogs of Europe
Based on the novel by Alhierd Bacharevic
Translated by Daniella Kaliada
Belarus Free Theatre.
Dunstan Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
March 2. Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Tickets: $40-$109. Duration: 3 hours including interval.
Until March 6.

A Little Life
Based on the novel by Hanya Yanagihara.
Adaptation by Koen Tachelet
Internationaal Theater Amsterdam.
Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre
March 4. Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Tickets: $60-$129. Duration: 4 hours including interval.
Until March 8.

In the opening weekend …

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Theatre: Hans & Gret

Filed under: 2023,Adelaide Companies,Archive,Festival,Theatre

Adelaide Festival

Theatre: Hans & Gret

An old fairy story is revisited with a new kind of witch, a futuristic dystopia obsessed with staying young, and Gret, not Hans, as the prime investigator.

Windmill Theatre has specialised in taking a story we think we know and, while keeping it recognisable, also turning it into something refreshingly rich and strange. They did it with The Wizard of Oz, Pinocchio and Rumpelstiltskin and they are back with an angsty take on …

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March 04, 2023

Theatre: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Filed under: 2023,Archive,Festival,Interstate,Theatre

Adelaide Festival
Theatre: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale about the struggle between public virtue and unconscious impulse is brilliantly transformed for stage and screen.

Written by Murray Bramwell

One of the many happy consequences of ongoing Adelaide Festival programming is that we have the chance to see the development of new work from artists and companies who have performed previously.

So, after last year’s extraordinary work, The Picture of Dorian Gray, …

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October 21, 2022

Theatre Review: The Demon

Filed under: 2022,Archive,Australian Texts,Festival,Theatre

The Demon explores the dark past in Australia’s colonial history, its effects on First Nations people and later on migrant minorities both Asian and Middle Eastern. This bold production is a grim journey – often compelling, but sometimes hampered by its own theatrical ambition.

Written by Murray Bramwell

The Demon is the kind of project we look forward to with the OzAsia program. Like Light, Thomas Henning’s discursive account of Adelaide’s Colonel William Light and his tribulations with the …

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March 15, 2022

Adelaide Festival – Theatre : The Picture of Dorian Gray

Filed under: 2022,Archive,Festival,State Theatre Company,Theatre

With dazzling stagecraft and an extraordinary solo performance by Eryn Jean Norvill, this screenshot of Dorian is a Wilde ride.

“The first duty of life is to assume a pose,” Oscar Wilde declared, “what the second duty is no one yet has found out.” As his biographer Richard Ellmann noted – “Wilde had been much concerned with images . He had painted self-portrait after self portrait.” He was referring to Oscar’s variety of beards, his curled hair and foppish costumes …

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March 08, 2022

Adelaide Festival – Photographic Memory

Filed under: 2022,Adelaide Companies,Archive,Festival,Theatre

The Photo Box
Created and performed by Emma Beech
Vitalstatistix and Brink Productions
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
March 3. Until March 7.

When left with nothing after bushfires and (as right now) extreme flooding, the first thing Australian families report is their relief that they saved their pets. And the very next thing is that they rescued their photo albums. Family photos are the Dead Sea Scrolls of our domestic history. They reinforce legend, prompt (and sometimes falsify) memory, …

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March 04, 2022

Adelaide Festival – Twists in tales of surprise, suspense

Filed under: 2022,Archive,Festival,State Theatre Company,Theatre

Blindness
Adapted by Simon Stephens
Based on the novel by Jose Saramago
Donmar Warehouse.
Queen’s Theatre, Adelaide.
Tickets: $20-$79. Bookings: adelaidefestival.com
February 24. Duration : 70 mins.
Until March 20.
Also: Merrigong Theatre Company, Illawarra Town Hall, Wollongong.
May 11- 15.

Girls & Boys
By Dennis Kelly
State Theatre Company South Australia
Odeon Theatre, Norwood.
Tickets : $44- $80. Bookings: statetheatrecompany.com.au
March 1. Duration: 105 minutes.
Until March 12.

A motorist, in traffic as the lights change, comes to a …

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October 21, 2021

Theatre review: White Pearl

Filed under: 2021,Archive,Festival,Theatre

White Pearl not only takes a sharp and funny swipe at the Asian cosmetics industry, it reminds us that racism comes in a disturbing variety of forms – and social media is often not helping. OzAsia 2021 has opened with its first highlight.

Murray Bramwell

Clearday is the name of this smart young Singaporean cosmetic company, but there is nothing very clear about the way they do business. Their product is called White Pearl and as playwright, Achuli Felicia King’s …

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March 07, 2021

Agonising trajectory of live-streamed drama

Filed under: 2021,Archive,Festival,International,Theatre

Adelaide Festival

Medea
After Euripides
Written and directed by Simon Stone
Internationaal Theater Amsterdam.
Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide.
Sir Robert Helpmann Theatre, Mount Gambier.
March 4. Duration : 1 hr 20 mins.

Eugene Onegin
Selected chapters from the novel in verse
by Alexander Pushkin.
Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre of Russia.
Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide
March 5. Duration 3 hrs 20 mins, including interval.

Since inception the Adelaide Festival has been celebrated for its international program. But like so much else, …

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