Cosi
by Louis Nowra
State Theatre Company
with the Red Shed
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
The State Theatre Company in collaboration with the Red Shed Company is combating the winter blues with Louis Nowra’s Cosi, a comedy about a young man’s adventures directing a production of Cosi Fan Tutti with a cast of patients from a mental institution. The situation and theme have plenty of echoes – from Marat Sade and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to recent comedies …
Continue Reading Back to topSchool for Scandal
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
State Theatre Company
The Playhouse
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
The last time director Simon Phillips worked with designer Mary Moore it was for Edward Bond’s Restoration. Now with School for Scandal they turn from satiric pastiche to the real thing. But these days the real thing- in the case of Sheridan- means blending Restoration manner with a good deal of satiric pastiche.
This State has done with considerable flair. Characteristically, Moore’s design is …
Continue Reading Back to topDeath and the Maiden
by Ariel Dorfman
Sydney Theatre Company
Space
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
Since Ariel Dorfman’s ethico-political thriller Death and the Maiden has emerged as one of the most admired new works performed in London for some time, the inclusion of the Sydney Theatre Company version in State’s current season provides a welcome opportunity to see the play- if not, perhaps, in the production it best deserves.
Whodunnit, sexual dialectic, theatrical nailbiter and timely reminder, Death and the …
Continue Reading Back to topAll Souls
by Daniel Keene
Red Shed Company
Cardwell Street
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
All Souls continues the productive relationship between Daniel Keene and the Red Shed Company. Last year’s Low, a grim underclass tragedy featuring Ulli Birve and Syd Brisbane, drew admiring, often young, audiences to Cardwell Street. With All Souls, a Red Shed commission, Keene has extended his writing- sometimes over-extended it- but the result is a new work of considerable distinction.
All Souls is a dream play …
Continue Reading Back to topThe Jim Rose Circus Sideshow
Heaven
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
A Rose is a ruse is a total freakout -as the packed and ogling house in Newmarket Heaven discovered when the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow made its only- shall we say- appearance in Adelaide. Out of Seattle, the Weimar of the New World, and late of the Lollapalooza road show in the US, Mr Rose and his associates do their very best to keep their audiences entirely captivated. We are …
Continue Reading Back to topAin’t Misbehavin’
The Fats Waller Musical Show
Festival Theatre
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
While it is one of the great twentienth century art forms and an instance of American culture at its most inventive and vigorous, the blues sometimes gets the blues itself. With a shift to an African aesthetic many Black Americans no longer warm to the music of oppression, some would say defeat. And the shift in sexual politics in the past twenty years has left the blues …
Continue Reading Back to topAin’t Misbehavin’
The Fats Waller Musical Show
Festival Theatre
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
While it is one of the great twentienth century art forms and an instance of American culture at its most inventive and vigorous, the blues sometimes gets the blues itself. With a shift to an African aesthetic many Black Americans no longer warm to the music of oppression, some would say defeat. And the shift in sexual politics in the past twenty years has left the blues …
Continue Reading Back to topMurray Bramwell talks with Meryl Tankard and Regis Lansac about what’s afoot at ADT.
We are sitting in the Red Ochre Grill, Gouger Street billabong for the Australian Dance Theatre. Or as it now is- the Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre. Along with the eponymous Meryl is her partner and creative associate Regis Lansac and ADT administrator Rainer Jozeps. In between stabs at the emu pate Tankard and Lansac talked about preparation for the company’s season and their views on …
Continue Reading Back to topSummer Festival
Adelaide Festival Centre Trust
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
The Summer Season, our solace in the off-year between festivals continues to give comfort. In fact, combined with Womadelaide, we can hardly complain about the available fare in these early months when holidays are over, daylight saving fades and the tomato plants have died off. It began with Julian Clary, who has in short time won hearts and minds as the love-child of Kenneth Williams. And continued with John Waters.…
Continue Reading Back to topCome Out, the national biennial youth fest is about to sprout again. For the fortnight of 2-15 May the festival will overtake Adelaide with a variety of activities in all art forms. As always, the statistics are impressive- 1,690 performer, three hundred performances by fifty-six companies. But Come Out extends far beyond this as school and community programs plug in to activities that take place throughout South Australia. In its scope and vision Come Out is remarkable, unique in Australia …
Continue Reading Back to top