murraybramwell.com

August 01, 1996

Infarction

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

The Shifting Heart
by Richard Beynon

State Theatre
Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

In 1957 The Shifting Heart created considerable impact for its young playwright Richard Beynon. In fact, at the time, prospective producers were wary of the currency of its themes. Triggered by a newspaper report about the suicide of a Polish immigrant -the Mr Leczycki named in the play’s dedication- The Shifting Heart examines, in the microcosm of Collingwood’s Bianchi family, the social and cultural tensions created by …

Continue Reading Back to top

Abdication

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,International,Theatre

The Queen and I
by Sue Townsend
adapted by Melissa Reeves
Her Majesty’s

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Take a script by Sue Townsend, already a success in the UK, add adaptations from Melissa Reeves, gather together a strong cast of Australian and English actors, have it directed by Max Stafford-Clark, toss in some songs by Ian Dury and you ought to have some sort of a hit. Alas, The Queen and I is a royal mess.

Sue Townsend, creator of …

Continue Reading Back to top

March 01, 1996

Break-out

Filed under: Archive,Festival,International,Theatre

Claustrophobia
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 top

January 01, 1996

Figuring the Landscape

Filed under: Archive,International,Interviews,Theatre

Figuring the Landscape

Murray Bramwell talks with Philippe Genty and Mary Underwood about their new Australian-based production, Stowaways.

For nearly twenty years Philippe Genty has been an Australian stowaway. Ever since his first visit to the Adelaide and Perth Festivals in1978 he has lodged in the minds of a diverse Australian audience which has been both entranced and intrigued by the imaginative world of his theatre. His wacky dancing ostriches and weird little floating homunculi, his erotic puppets festooned in …

Continue Reading Back to top

December 01, 1995

Drang und Storm

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,Theatre

Hamlet
The Tempest
by William Shakespeare

Company B
Belvoir
The Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is more than thirty years since the Polish writer Jan Kott declared Shakespeare not only our contemporary but the playwright for all of Europe. The idea liberated Peter Brook’s King Lear and gave acrobatic freedom to his version of the Dream but then it lapsed again. Shakespearean performance from the UK has, with notable exceptions -Cheek by Jowl, some of Michael Bogdanivich’s work with …

Continue Reading Back to top

Tomorrow the World

Filed under: Archive,International,Interstate,Theatre

Murray Bramwell

After the announcement of State Theatre’s Australian Playhouse season for 1996 comes detail of the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust’s World Theatre program. The world, it seems, is a somewhat closer place than we might have thought given the level of Australian content in the line-up. Perhaps now that State has committed itself to a five year plan we will have a better sense in future that the left hand knows whether the right hand has already signed the …

Continue Reading Back to top

October 01, 1995

Sightings

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

1995

Murray Bramwell

Over the past six weeks or so  there has been  a profusion of new work and interesting ventures – more than this reviewer could keep up with. I am sorry to report that, despite repeatedly surrendering the X Files, I failed to get to everything on offer. Among my regrets is the Oddbodies Theatre Co-op’s production of Kafka Dances, the well-regarded new play written by Timothy Daly and directed by Sean Riley.  By all accounts …

Continue Reading Back to top

Suspended Re-animation

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

1995

The Floating World

by John Romeril

State Theatre

Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is timely to have State Theatre’s revival of John Romeril’s APG classic, The Floating World. Timely in that its subject matter- the experiences of Australian soldiers on what was then called the Burma-Siam Railway- coincides with the Australia Remembers project. But on closer inspection its themes sit uncomfortably with the blandness of the current celebrations. Fifty years on, Australia is remembering- but about as selectively …

Continue Reading Back to top

Binary Vision

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,Theatre

1995

Arcadia
by Tom Stoppard
State Theatre in association with
The Sydney Theatre Company
Playhouse, September, 1995.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Arcadia, like its setting, Sidley Park, is a major property. Probably Stoppard’s best work since the plays from the Seventies such as Jumpers and Travesties, it marks an impressive return to form. It is maddeningly over-written and plagued with tropes he should be able to resist by now. But it is also propelled by ideas and energies which, in …

Continue Reading Back to top

September 01, 1995

Very Like a Whale

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,State Theatre Company,Theatre

Moby Dick
Adaptation by Nigel Triffitt

State Theatre
Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

This production first surfaced at the Melbourne Festival in 1990 and now State has refitted it for its current season. Nigel Triffitt has always been full of bright ideas and this adaptation of Moby Dick is among his best. Melville’s sprawling novel, part metaphysics, part ripping yarn, has ample theatrical potential and time has only added to its curiosity and appeal.

The account of Captain Ahab’s pursuit …

Continue Reading Back to top
« Newer Posts — Older Posts »