Hello Down There !
Junction Theatre Company
Space
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
Hello Down There! first played in June this year when Junction presented this remarkable community venture at Theatre 62. Now under the auspices of the Festival Centre Trust’s New Works program it has had a return season in the Space.
It is impossible not to be impressed by the the energy and commitment of this project. With a cast of thirty four, a choir of twelve, a seven …
Continue Reading Back to topAnd I’ll Give You All the Diamonds in My Teeth
by Jeanne Mazure
South Australian Writers’ Theatre
Red Shed
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
By coincidence we have recently had two new plays about the life of the mentally ill. But where Louis Nowra’s Cosi settled for comic exoticism, in And I’ll Give You All the Diamonds in My Teeth, South Australian writer Jeanne Mazure has delved deeper. A practising psychologist herself, Mazure has had a long association with her subject …
Continue Reading Back to topReadings from Conan Doyle
Amazing Holmes Company
The Polo Club, Union Hotel.
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
The Amazing Holmes Company has been amazing audiences for ten years. Founded by Kelvin Harman and John Kelly they have taken their readings of Conan Doyle to audiences all around South Australia as well as holding sessions at various venues in town. For the past six performances they have settled into rooms that the company find as agreeable as Baker Street itself – the …
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 topPetrouchka
Australian Dance Theatre
Space
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
Back in the Space with a three item program Leigh Warren’s ADT has been getting on with the business of being a dance company. Contract terminations and leadership changes are part of the process of continuity and change in any company but they cause upheaval and stress nonetheless. It can’t have been an easy environment for either Warren or his dancers to produce new work which makes the present season the …
Continue Reading Back to topYellow Roses
by Roxxy Bent
Vitalstatistix
Space
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
The Festival Centre Trust has called its Space program Brave New Works and Yellow Roses is undoubtedly both new and brave. Roxxy Bent’s writing is familiar to Vitalstatistix’ regular audience- her plays have a nicely loony, acute-angle feel about them. The humour is often a slow-burner, or so slight you miss it- or the actor does. Waiting for Annette and the purpose-built Florence Who? are good examples of the …
Continue Reading Back to topMiracle
Tobsha Learner
Vitalstatistix
Waterside
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
Miracle, Vitalstatistix’ latest production at the Waterside, marks a further collaboration between writer Tobsha Learner and actor Rose Clemente. After Witchplay comes Miracle, a fantasy set in Triads Supermarket where long-time check out operator, Immaculata Santini hears the voice of God through the cash register. The play is centrally a vehicle for Clemente as Immaculata, a performance which not only propels the show but gives it considerable warmth and charm.
Again …
Continue Reading Back to topBirds of the Moon
by Anna O’Connor
Patch Theatre Centre
South Australia
Director- Dave Brown, Designer- Kerry Reid, Composer- John Shortis, Choreographer- Guy Detot, Performers- Rosalind Aylmore, Nic Hurcombe.
Birds of the Moon, Dave Brown’s first production as Artistic Director of Patch Theatre Centre has been touring junior primaries with a simple tale of two migrating shearwaters. Otherwise known as muttonbirds, shearwaters breed in the islands of Bass Strait and along the southern coast of the mainland. Barely have they …
Continue Reading Back to topTheatre Sports
Improd Theatre
The Big Ticket
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
Theatre Sports, trademark registered by Keith Johnstone and the Loose Moose company, is Canada’s best-running export since maple syrup. A zappy combination of charades, It’s a Knockout and thespian wrestling, Theatre Sports began fourteen years ago and, especially in the past five years , has invaded the known world.
Their appeal is not hard to fathom. They have brought a refreshing unpredictability to the theatre. The frenzied, often ludicrous …
Continue Reading Back to topFunerals and Circuses
by Roger Bennett
Music by Paul Kelly
Magpie Theatre, South Australia
Director: Steve Gration
Assistant Director: Kaarin Fairfax
Designer: Kathryn Sproul
Choreographer: Debra Batton
Lighting: Laraine Wheeler
Cast: Wayne Anthoney, Roger Bennett, Robert Crompton, Fille Dusseljee, Francis Greenslade, Michael Harris, Nick Hope, Paul Kelly, Kate Roberts, Mandi Sandilands, Lillian Sansbury, Simone Tur.
Rarely does a theatrical work speak to its audience as directly and potently as Funerals and Circuses. In the midst of the Adelaide Festival, …
Continue Reading Back to top