The 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 topMetamorphosis and Bawky Play, Red Shed Company
ABC, Patch Theatre Company
Soft Targets, Troupe
The Red Shed Company continues to provide distinctive and committed theatre as indicated by their most recent double bill – Bawky Play by David Carlin and an adaptation of an adaptation of Berkoff’s Kafka’s Metamorphosis.
The story of Gregor Samsa, bureaucratic functionary, who wakes up to find he has become a giant insect is more than seventy years old. But …
Continue Reading Back to topDavid Holman talks to Murray Bramwell.
In Adelaide in time for Come Out, David Holman might have been forgiven for thinking that his works were the main fare for the Festival. For a start, Magpie were doing two plays which Holman originated in Australia. No Worries, one of the great sleepers from the 1984 Adelaide Festival and The Small Poppies, one of the most keenly anticipated plays from the 1986 Festival. In addition, Frankie, the young people’s opera …
Continue Reading Back to topI’m Not a Racist, but …
by Richard Lawrance
Multicultural Youth Theatre, SA
Directed by Tessa Bremner
Cast: Vicki London, David Saddler, Aimee Thomas,
Nicolas Primaro, Raphael Nguyen, Peter Nguyen, Ha Tran.
On the face of it the flyers for the Multicultural Youth Theatre’s production were not promising. (Narelle is fifteen, alone and pregnant. Cong and Trinh are trying to hack it in this strange new country. Dog Track’s in debt and on the run and Petar’s caught between the …
Continue Reading Back to topMy Place
by Christine Anketell
Patch Theatre. South Australia
Directed by: Christine Anketell
Design: Kathryn Sproul
Music: Stuart Day
Production Manager: Richard Meyman
Cast: Joanna Cooper, Gwenda Helsham, Karen Inwood
There’s no place like home, as Dorothy once said to her red shoes. And as it is the International Year of Shelter for The Homeless, the Patch Theatre Company have used it as the occasion for their Come Out 87 contribution, My Place.
Perhaps one reason why the International …
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 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 topStreet from the Heart
A Streetcar Named Desire
Harvest Theatre Co.,
The Arts Theatre
The Harvest Theatre Company wended its way to Adelaide recently for a season at the Arts Theatre of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. In keeping with Harvest’s charter, this production has toured regional centres in Western Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, playing more than forty performances and linking with local theatre groups along the way.
It must be quite a punishing schedule but there …
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