Rough Crossing
by Tom Stoppard
State Theatre Company.
Playhouse.
Tom Stoppard is well on the way to becoming a noun. A stoppard could be the kind of play you write while you are waiting to write a play, a mot boiler, probably retreaded from an obscure, Hapsburg whimsy by Nestroy. Or even Ferenc Molnar, whose The Play at the Castle dined on the ‘well-made’ confections of Victorien Sardou and was itself snaffled by P. G. Wodehouse to become The Play’s …
Continue Reading Back to topKitchen Synch
Absurd Person Singular
By Alan Ayckbourn.
State Theatre Company.
Playhouse.
The State Theatre Company chose Absurd Person Singular because, as it was the first time any Alan Ayckbourn had been performed professionally in Adelaide, they wanted to present a proven winner. It is a good piece and epitomises Ayckbourn’s undeniable stagecraft. But in recent years TV audiences have seen this play, Absent Friends, Season’s Greetings and numerous repeats of The Norman Conquests enough for the production to have …
Continue Reading Back to top1841
by Michael Gow
State Theatre Company
Playhouse
Theatre commissions are a bit like cargo cults. Titles are announced, brochures printed, runways are built and everybody waits for the play to land triumphantly. Except that, more often than not, it either overshoots the tarmac or pancakes unceremoniously in the midst of consternation and disbelief.
When the State Theatre Company secured the services of Michael Gow to write a play for the 1988 Adelaide Festival with additional support from the Bicentennial …
Continue Reading Back to top… Continue Reading Back to topDear Sir, While brevity is the soul of wit, I did not intend my review of the State Theatre Company’s Month of Sundays (Age Old Questions, March AR) to be quite that witty.
It would seem that there are times when even FAX fux up and this was one of them. A page of copy went missing in transmission and with it honourable mention of performances by actors Ron Haddrick, Brian James, Diane Smith and Carol Skinner in particular, as
Away
by Michael Gow
State Theatre Company
Playhouse
The State Theatre Company and director Aubrey Mellor have concluded another season with a strong production. But although done with flair last year’s Wild Honey was really just tizzied up minor Chekhov. This year’s work is a new Australian play of some distinction.
Away has been widely performed in the past two years – there have been three separate productions in the last month alone. Such fulsome attention might prove daunting for …
Continue Reading Back to topJohn Gaden, Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company of South Australia, reflects in midseason.
I first met John Gaden in October last year when the State Theatre Company was announcing his appointment as its new AD. 1985 had been a troubled year for State with a number of productions in succession hitting the wall as the local press grew more toxic and audiences more disheartened .
So Gaden’s appointment was greeted warmly from all sides. As a popular actor …
Continue Reading Back to topWilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge – Patch Theatre Company
A Sporting Chance – Magpie Theatre Company
Blood Relations – Sydney Theatre Company/State Theatre Company
Having conjured up Possum Magic, South Australian writer Mem Fox and illustrator Julie Vivas followed with another highly successful picture book, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge. It has now been adapted for the stage by Sheryn Dee and Mem Fox and presented by the Patch Theatre Company in the Festival Centre Space.
Wilfrid has played to …
Continue Reading Back to topPale Intimations
Blood Relations
by David Malouf
State Theatre Company and Sydney
Theatre Company
The Playhous
When a writer of the stature of David Malouf turns to the theatre we are sure to have high expectations. But there is already enough evidence that novelists do not necessarily playwrights make. Locally, Nigel Krauth’s Muse of Fire, Barry Dickins’ Beaut/and, and, more recently Patrick White’s Shepherd on the Rocks have shown us that.
The reasons are not surprising. A novelist has complete …
Continue Reading Back to topThe Winter’s Tale
State Theatre Company
A Touchy Subject
Vitalstatistix
There have been a number of productions of The Winter‘s Tale lately. But the State Theatre Company has made glorious summer with a version that represents some of its finest work to date. The Winter‘s Tale forms part of a cluster of plays in Artistic Director, John Gaden’s 1987 programme. It began with his and Gale Edward’s Much Ado About Nothing back in February and links with …
Continue Reading Back to topLes Liaisons Dangereuses
Christopher Hampton
State Theatre Company
Playhouse
By now everyone and their chien has heard about Les Liaisons Dangereuses. It has been cleaning up awards and bouquets ever since it first appeared in London in 1985 and umpteen productions have been performed world wide. Now, with the State Theatre Company’s production we at last have a chance to see what all the fuss has been about.
Playwright Christopher Hampton has taken bold liberties with Choderlos de Ladas’s …
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