murraybramwell.com

September 01, 1998

Positives and Negatives

Morde
by Paul Rees
Theatre Praxis
Lion Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Sometimes an event occurs which is so extraordinary and complete in its symbolic value that it seems definitively dramatic. The story of Mordechai Vanunu must have seemed so to Adelaide based writer Paul Rees. The Israeli defence worker who photographed evidence of his country’s nuclear capability and then, while hiding out in a wayside chapel in King’s Cross in Sydney, made arrangements to expose the information in The …

Continue Reading Back to top

August 01, 1998

On top of the world

On Top of the World
Europe
by Michael Gow
Melbourne Theatre Company
The Space

After a whistlestop tour of regional centres from Wagga and Launceston to Griffith and Russell Street, the MTC production of Europe has set up for what deserves to be a successful season in the Space.

For one thing, it is a good play and a keen reminder that Michael Gow deserves being made a fuss of. It is also a play that says more about history …

Continue Reading Back to top

April 01, 1998

Social Engineering

The Department
David Williamson

State Theatre South Australia
The Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Set in 1967, first performed in 1974, David Williamson’s The Department, like other early works such as The Club and Don’s Party , is both generic and prophetic. While bearing some resemblance to Swinburne College of Technology, where Williamson taught in the Engineering faculty in the sixties, The Department is also archetypical of a staff meeting in any educational institution. Or, for that matter, anywhere that …

Continue Reading Back to top

January 01, 1998

House Moves

Features of Blown Youth
by Raimondo Cortese

Magpie2
Queens Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

When State Theatre refitted Magpie 2 this year it also gave it a difficult task. Some might have called it a Mission Impossible. No longer a theatre-in-schools project its charter was switched to post secondary audience development. Magpie was now to produce theatre for eighteen to twenty-five year olds- a group that is not really a group at all, a demographic that not even demographers can …

Continue Reading Back to top

October 01, 1997

Dead Reckonings

After the Ball
David Williamson

Queensland Theatre Company
Her Majesty’s

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

After the fiscal wars of Money and Friends and the gender wars of Brilliant Lies, after the media wars of Sanctuary and the culture wars of Dead White Males, after Heretic and Third World Blues. After all this comes After the Ball – and what might be called the family wars.

But David Williamson’s newest play is not about huge sundering feuds. Not your …

Continue Reading Back to top

September 01, 1997

Birdy

Gulls
by Robert Hewett
State Theatre
Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

As State Theatre’s Australian Playhouse staggers to an unceremonious conclusion with the recent announcement that Away has been scratched from the 1997 card, it is something of an irony that Don’s Party and now Gulls have actually given us two very good reasons for reviving works from our national repertoire. Unlike earlier choices such as The Torrents and The Shifting Heart, which held more historical than dramatic interest, Gulls, …

Continue Reading Back to top

Sea Change

The Mourning After
by Verity Laughton
Playbox
Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Belle Doyle may be by herself on the beach on Christmas Day but she is not alone. Verity Laughton’s comic weepie The Mourning After, is a monodrama with a cast of dozens. The situation is emotionally raw. Belle’s husband Harry has unexpectedly gone blue and died on the morning of Christmas Eve. In fact he has died in the middle of an argument over whether Belle, a song …

Continue Reading Back to top

August 01, 1997

Transparency

The North
William Yang

Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

When he presented Sadness at the Institute Hall in Kintore Avenue William Yang gave us one of the unexpected highlights of the 1994 Adelaide Festival. Idiosyncratic, intimate and full of wry good humour, Yang’s slide show did much to draw together the otherwise inchoate strands of Christopher Hunt’s program. This modest one- person show provided a regional perspective and dealt with regional ethnicity. But, unlike much of the abstracted, ethnomusicological fare …

Continue Reading Back to top

July 01, 1997

Double Disillusion

Don’s Party
by David Williamson

State Theatre
Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

There can be no better instance of David Williamson’s theatrical verve than Don’s Party. This suburban bacchanal not only captures in broad sweeps the issues of its day it is also a durable comedy of humours. The situation is disarmingly simple. A group of people get together for an election night party which deteriorates into confrontation and regret. It ends not with resolution but exhaustion -with just …

Continue Reading Back to top

Blood Simple

Wolf Lullaby
by Hilary Bell

Griffin Theatre Company
Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

A large white kitchen chair dominates the minimal set for Hilary Bell’s powerful new play, Wolf Lullaby. Denoting a child’s perspective of the adult world it dwarves the two normal sized chairs set next to it. And when Lizzie, aged nine, climbs into it clutching her dolly, it also amplifies the enormity of the emotions and anxieties this play manages to conjure.

Lizzie lives with her mother, …

Continue Reading Back to top
« Newer PostsOlder Posts »