murraybramwell.com

July 01, 1997

Rapture and Rhythm

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

Quiver
Leigh Warren and Dancers
Norwood Town Hall
Adelaide

Murray Bramwell

Quiver, the new program from Leigh Warren and Dancers is continuing evidence of the company’s invention and excellence. With last year’s return season of Klinghoffer and now, the unveiling of two contrasting works, Shimmer and Swerve, Leigh Warren’s signatures are becomingly increasingly apparent. His work is disciplined, elegant and has the added intensity which music performed live can bring. With Klinghoffer, he borrowed ethereal choruses from John Adams’s opera, …

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Double Disillusion

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,State Theatre Company,Theatre

Don’s Party
by David Williamson

State Theatre
Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

There can be no better instance of David Williamson’s theatrical verve than Don’s Party. This suburban bacchanal not only captures in broad sweeps the issues of its day it is also a durable comedy of humours. The situation is disarmingly simple. A group of people get together for an election night party which deteriorates into confrontation and regret. It ends not with resolution but exhaustion -with just …

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Blood Simple

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,Interstate,Theatre

Wolf Lullaby
by Hilary Bell

Griffin Theatre Company
Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

A large white kitchen chair dominates the minimal set for Hilary Bell’s powerful new play, Wolf Lullaby. Denoting a child’s perspective of the adult world it dwarves the two normal sized chairs set next to it. And when Lizzie, aged nine, climbs into it clutching her dolly, it also amplifies the enormity of the emotions and anxieties this play manages to conjure.

Lizzie lives with her mother, …

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June 01, 1997

Future Tense

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

Magpie2 opens at Queen’s Theatre in Adelaide with the double header Future Tense, directed by Benedict Andrews.

Murray Bramwell

Magpie has returned. It now has a series number -like a software package, or an engine. Magpie2. Reconfigured by former State Theatre Company Executive Producer, Chris Westwood, the company has set aside its theatre in schools charter to provide theatre works with the eighteen to twenty-six year old constituency in mind. It is a big move and there are no guarantees. …

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Adelaide

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

The Secret Death of Salvador Dali
by Stephen Sewell

The Court of Miracles
Directed by Peter Dunn
Lion Theatre
Adelaide

“The difference between a madman and me”, Salvador Dali once said, “is that I am not mad.” More, you might say, crazy like a fox. The pre-eminent artist celebrity before Andy Warhol, Dali forms the link between the anti-bourgeois Dada comedy of Alfred Jarry and the zany popularity of the Marx Brothers. With his melting watches, lobster telephones and a …

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Dance

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

Fast Editing
Simone Clifford
The Space
Adelaide Festival Centre

Murray Bramwell

Adelaide based Simone Clifford’s current program of work, Fast Editing , is part of the Festival Centre Trust’s Made to Move season. Formerly a dancer with ADT during Jonathan Taylor’s artistic directorship in the early Eighties, Clifford went on to work in Jiri Kylian’s Nederlands Dans Theater for five years.

Fast Editing consists of two works- a new piece entitled Reluctant Relics , created in October and November of …

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May 28, 1997

Adelaide – Future Tense

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

Future Tense
Magpie 2
Queen’s Theatre
Adelaide

The Magpie has landed. Magpie 2, that is. For a long time the theatre-in-education wing of the State Theatre Company, it is has now pitched its energies towards the eighteen to twenty-six age group, not exactly a theatre-friendly demographic. Not exactly a demographic at all. So, newly appointed artistic director Benedict Andrews has nailed his doubloon to the mast with a program to his own liking – a double feature of contemporary European …

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April 01, 1997

Sleepy

Filed under: Archive,International,Theatre

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
William Shakespeare

Royal Shakespeare Company
Festival Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell.

It may take forty minutes for Puck to put a girdle round the earth but it takes the RSC a little longer. It is ten years since we saw Anthony Sher’s Richard III and a lot longer back to Peter Brook’s legendary Dream. Now, boosted by a British Council celebrating its jubilee, the RSC returns like an infrequent comet, bringing with it a considerable reputation …

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March 01, 1997

Divided Purpose

Filed under: Archive,International,Theatre

Cyrano
Adapted by Anthony Burgess

Theatre at Large
Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The story of Cyrano has been a stage favourite since Edmond Rostand’s syrupy romance hit the Paris boards almost exactly a century ago. Since then it has become a regularly revived cinema property- who could forget Gerard Depardieu as the schnozz ?- and an English rep staple as well. Ralph Richardson’s biographer describes how Rafe and Olivier vied for the part. The choice was between Cyrano and …

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February 01, 1997

Travelling Light

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,Interstate,Theatre

Corrugation Road
Jimmy Chi, Kuckles and Pigram Brothers

Black Swan Company
Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

For Black Swan it is another Bran Nue Dae. After the boisterous success of Jimmy Chi’s discursive account of growing up in Broome, the company is now freewheeling down Corrugation Road. As the title suggests, it is a rougher ride this time as Chi -with a lot of help from musical friends, Kuckles and the Pigram Brothers- recounts his painful encounter with schizophrenia, agoraphobia, …

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