murraybramwell.com

March 01, 2025

Adelaide Festival: Theatre Krapp’s Last Tape

In a meticulously staged production of a Samuel Beckett classic, Irish actor Stephen Rea gives a touchingly human account of a man in old age slowly revisiting and rewinding a life of disenchantment and missed opportunities.

Written by Murray Bramwell

“A country road. A tree. Evening.” In 1949, Samuel Beckett transformed the post-war theatre with a single play –Waiting for Godot. Clearing the decks of stage naturalism and psychologically detailed characters, he opted for theatrical minimalism. Less was …

Continue Reading Back to top

February 26, 2025

Adelaide Festival: Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Text by John Cameron Mitchell

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Trask

The Queens Theatre, Adelaide.

February 26, 2025

Murray Bramwell

Since we are talking about a punk rock musical, why not start with Plato’s Symposium ?

“Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature. Each of us, then, is a ‘matching …

Continue Reading Back to top

October 25, 2024

OzAsia Festival Dance/Theatre : Scored in Silence

The title is a paradox –Scored in Silence. There is no music, in fact, at crucial moments no sound at all. But its message is loud and clear. OzAsia opens with a visually intriguing theatrical experience that reminds us to hearken to the lessons of history.

Written by Murray Bramwell

This solo performance by Japanese performer/choreographer, Chisato Minamimura (who is herself deaf) is a description of the dropping of the A-Bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, as experienced by …

Continue Reading Back to top

September 15, 2024

Adelaide Guitar Festival: Rolling Stones Revue

Filed under: 2024,Archive,Festival,Music

The Rolling Stones Revue gathers some of Australia’s best and fairest singers and instrumentalists for the celebration of a classic album and a non-stop, knees-up eisteddfod of Greatest Hits.

Written by Murray Bramwell

Last year’s Adelaide Guitar Festival featured an excellent tribute to the incomparable Jeff Beck. This time around it is the pre-eminent rock and roll guitar band, The Rolling Stones. Sixty years on, and they are still out there on the (gold paved) road, filling stadiums like there …

Continue Reading Back to top

June 08, 2024

Adelaide Cabaret Festival – The 2024 Variety Gala

Presided over by exuberant Artistic Director, Virginia Gay, this year’s Variety Gala – featuring an array of amazing women (and also some excellent blokes) – is one of the briskest and best we have seen for a while.

Written by Murray Bramwell

It’s that time again. A week into June, just when winter starts to bite, and the Adelaide Cabaret Festival convenes for the 24th year. And, as old as the festival itself, is the Variety Gala. They are …

Continue Reading Back to top

March 09, 2024

Adelaide Festival – Qui a tue mon pere (Who killed my father)

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 …

Continue Reading Back to top

March 08, 2024

Adelaide Festival – The Threepenny Opera

Filed under: 2024,Archive,Festival,Music

Adelaide Festival
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 top

March 06, 2024

Adelaide Festival – I Hide in Bathrooms

I 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 top

March 01, 2024

Goodbye Lindita

Described 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 top

October 20, 2023

2024 Adelaide Festival program launched

Filed under: 2023,Archive,Festival

The 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 top
« Newer PostsOlder Posts »