I Hate Mime
Chris Willems
Price Theatre
Chris Willems says he hates mime but nothing could be further from the truth. What he hates is the fact that white mime has become so refined that it has lost all its nutrients.
I Hate Mime is Willems’ third solo show and it follows Son of Romeo, his highly successful lip readers’ digest of Romeo and Juliet. Though unlike Romeo, with its familiar narrative, Willems’ new work is a more …
Continue Reading Back to topCome Out
The Come Out Festival started in 1974 because many professionals in the arts and education were peeved that the Adelaide Festival was taking no notice of young people in the performing arts. They set up in various parks in inner Adelaide and the momentum began. It was then decided that Come Out would utilise the Adelaide Festival’s administrative resources in the “off” year between Festivals and plan a full-scale programme of the kind that has been offered now …
Continue Reading Back to topMuch Ado About Nothing
by William Shakespeare
State Theatre Company.
The Playhouse
In setting events in the Messina of 1890, directors John Gaden and Gale Edwards have made their production of Much Ado About Nothing both impetuously Sicilian and priggishly Victorian; thus recognising the volatility and harshness of Shakespeare’s comedy.
The play is a tangle of slander, spite and cant as Hero, daughter of Leonato, is dishonoured by accusations of infidelity and then spurned in high dudgeon by her gullible …
Continue Reading Back to topA long-term dream will come true for John Gaden when the State Theatre Company’s Much Ado About Nothing opens at the Playhouse tonight. Gaden – and actors William Zappa and Celia de Burgh explain the attraction of the Shakespearean comedy to Murray Bramwell
It was November last year when John Gaden first asked William Zappa whether he knew Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and whether he would be interested in playing Benedick. Zappa recalls:
“I’d been staying with a friend …
Continue Reading Back to topWild Honey, State Theatre Company
Those Dear Departed, Stage Company
Stitch in Time, Vitalstatistix
Bazaar and Rummage, Red Shed Company
The State Theatre Company’s final production for 1987 is Michael Frayn’s adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Wild Honey, directed by Aubrey Mellor. The ur-manuscript of Wild Honey aka Platonov aka A Country Scandal languished in a bank deposit box in Moscow until 1920 before being dusted off and whipped into various shapes by various translators.
Frayn has taken bold …
Continue Reading Back to topThe Unley Town Hall, Troupe’s HQ, has been dark for much of this year. After Gavan Strawhan’s The Last Drive-In On Earth, the company’s crowd-pleaser from the Adelaide Festival, they offered a stylish production of Caryl Churchill ‘s Top Girls before going into recess. Then The Floating Palais, also by Strawhan, a success from last year, was resuscitated for a tour around the traps to bring Troupe’s vigorous brand of left-thinking, participation theatre to a wider audience. The …
Continue Reading Back to topWith so many of Adelaide’s theatre companies resting between engagements my bulletin this time is focused less on what is past or passing and more on what is to come – in particular, for the State Theatre Company in 1987.
When I interviewed John Gaden for last month’s CentreStage Australia, the 1987 season was still under embargo and thus the State secrets enthusiastically outlined by Gaden had to stay under the hat.
By the time this goes to press, …
Continue Reading Back to topBenefactors
By Michael Frayn
State Theatre Company, Playhouse.
Michael Frayns play, Benefactors appeared on the State Theatre Company performance list after Nick Enright and Alan John’s show Strange Harvest fell to the scythe of economics a few months back. The new Australian content in State’s programme dropped somewhat when John Romeril’s Jonah Jones went overboard and then Strange Harvest got the rotary heave ho as well, but indications are that State will redress the balance in 1987.
Benefactors, then, …
Continue Reading Back to topWhile Pravda was still offering unsoothing sooth in the Festival Centre Playhouse, The State Theatre Company launched its next venture, Hannie Rayson’s Room to Move, into the Space. It’s been donkey’s years since State have used this more informal, intimate acting area, and there was maybe a touch of
truancy as the players escaped the stern proscenium of the main venue.
Rayson’s play certainly gives room to move. It is an interesting piece with bags to commend it, but …
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