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September 26, 2024

Theatre: The Almighty Sometimes

While mental illness is often a “sometimes” thing, it is managed with debilitating treatments which are total and often life-diminishing. This memorable production from Theatre Republic powerfully depicts both the human cost and the fleeting triumphs.

Written by Murray Bramwell

In an epigraph to her outstanding stage debut, The Almighty Sometimes , Australian playwright, Kendall Feaver cites a medical textbook on The Bipolar Child which quotes advice from a nine year old, outlining what should be done when a child …

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September 05, 2024

Theatre: Shore Break

This solo work, written and brilliantly performed by Chris Pitman, explores how, in our midst, the lives of many are beached and marooned.

Written by Murray Bramwell

“I have tried to write a version of this story for many years but was never quite able to finish. A solitary figure, unable to connect, abandoned at the edge of the world.”

In Shore Break Chris Pitman has undoubtedly succeeded with this succinct monologue which crests and breaks like the intimidating waves …

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August 09, 2024

Musical Theatre Chicago

Harking back to the Jazz Age of the late 1920s, Chicago is full of fizz and low comedy, great song and dance performances, and has a shrewd edge intended to make us think, even as we enjoy the razzle dazzle.

Written by Murray Bramwell

“This is a story of greed, corruption, violence, exploitation, adultery and treachery. All those things we hold near and dear…” Before the curtain even goes up we know there are no red shoes, and this is …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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February 07, 2024

Theatre: The Children

In just over 100 minutes, with a splendid, often funny, script and three excellent actors, The Children explores the grim legacies of the past and the uncertainty and dangers of the future, without driving us to despair.

Written by Murray Bramwell

The State Theatre Company has again opened its season with an excellent production of an outstanding and intriguing play. Last year it was Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia ? This time it is, first performed in …

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October 13, 2023

Theatre: The Garden

Written by Murray Bramwell

With thrift and wit and unnerving candour, Theatre Republic’s intriguing new play examines in microcosm the inescapable reality of discrepant worlds and insufficient good intentions.

“This play has never been comfortable,“ Emily Steel writes in her program notes for The Garden. “It was uncomfortable to write and if I’ve done it properly it will be uncomfortable to watch.”

And she has done it properly. In a compact sixty minutes she has produced a crowded hour …

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August 30, 2023

Music Theatre: Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill

In State Theatre Company’s newest co-production, with Belvoir Street and Melbourne Theatre Company, the brilliant Zahra Newman and her band recapture and celebrate the vibrant life, loves, torments and timeless music of Billie Holiday.

Murray Bramwell

There can be few singers as mercurial as Billie Holiday. Biographer John Szwed says of the more than forty books written about her – “All those who have attempted to write about her have discovered there are many Billie Holidays: one lively and joyful, …

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May 04, 2023

Theatre: Every Brilliant Thing

When his mother attempts suicide, a seven year old boy starts to make a list of everything “brilliant” worth living for. This insightful, funny, increasingly complex play explores the pain and complexity of mental illness.

Written by Murray Bramwell

We are often encouraged to count our blessings, to focus on the glass half full. It is a worthy aim, but it is never that simple. In Every Brilliant Thing, UK playwright, Duncan McMillan (in collaboration with comedian Jonny Donahoe) …

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