School 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 …

1993­

What the Butler Saw

by Joe Orton

State Theatre Company

Playhouse

Joe Orton’s plays are not everybody’s cup of tee hee. There is humour that confirms our sense of the world and there is humour which unsettles it and Orton is definitely the latter. His comedy, all elliptical word play and glassy epigrams, has the mannered artificiality of Wilde. But unlike Oscar, Orton is not endearing.  His is pitiless, unlikeable comedy and when he makes you laugh it often …

Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter,
adapted by Carolyn Burns.

State Theatre Company ,
The Playhouse Adelaide Festival Centre.

It’s High Society time again. By the MGM musical out of The Philadelphia Story, the State Theatre Company’s joint production (with MTC, RQTC and Sue Farrelly) has not only added nine Cole Porter songs it has restored some of the zip from Philip Barry’s original text.

Carolyn Burns’ adaptation is an interesting one. She has clarified the plotline, given more depth …

High Society

Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter
Adapted by Carolyn Burns
State Theatre Company
Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It began when Philip Barry’s acerbic hit play became the acerbic hit film, The Philadelphia Story. Then some fifteen years later, the play was reworked, ten Cole Porter songs sung to great effect by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly and Louis Armstrong were added and it became the MGM hit musical, High Society. Now, in the State Theatre Company’s …

1992

Diving for Pearls

by Katherine Thomson

State Theatre Company

Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

There is much to admire about Diving for Pearls. Katherine Thomson’s play about the destruction of restructuring gets beyond the programmatic formulae of most current theatre dealing with contemporary issues. The cost of work to the working class in Australia has long been a theme in our naturalistic theatre- not least in Lawler’s The Summer of the Seventeeth Doll. But more recently the pace of …