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February 18, 2021

Fringe review: DIRT

Filed under: 2021,Adelaide Companies,Archive,Fringe,Theatre

Adelaide Fringe
Murray Bramwell

An Australian journalist is in Moscow to secretly investigate evidence of LGBTIQ persecution. He meets a Russian tourist guide who can help but he has his own agenda. Angus Cameron’s wryly engaging thriller takes us through a labyrinth of misrepresentation.

****1/2 Four and a Half Stars

DIRT is an intriguing play which combines serious human rights themes with an almost mischievous sense of shape-shifting plot surprise – making it all the more appealing.

An earnest young …

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February 16, 2021

Fringe review: Sea Wall

Filed under: 2021,Adelaide Companies,Archive,Fringe,Theatre

Adelaide Fringe
Murray Bramwell

A sea wall is a massive, unexpected chasm under the ocean often deceptively near the shore. In this tightly-scripted monologue, husband and father, Alex (splendidly played by Renato Musolino) explores his own dark abyss after a sudden, freakish accident.

***** Five stars

Asked at short notice in 2008 to write a play for the Bush Theatre in London, Simon Stephens came up with Sea Wall. “I wanted to write a monologue,” he said. “I wanted …

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December 12, 2020

The Bleeding Tree (Theatre Republic)

Filed under: 2020,Adelaide Companies,Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

Vengeance and resolution, exorcism and benediction, this excellent new production captures the visceral drama of Angus Cerini’s remarkable play.

Four and a Half Stars . Ngunyawayiti Theatre, Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide.

Reviewed December 11, 2020
by Murray Bramwell, published online December 12, 2020.

Amongst the anxiety and havoc of Covid-19, the performing arts in 2020 have been systematically clobbered. So many productions abandoned and cancelled, so much effort and commitment brought to nothing.

Adelaide independent company, Theatre Republic’s …

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October 29, 2019

The Split

Filed under: 2019,Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

Daily Review

The Split
by Sarah Hamilton
House of Sand
RUMPUS, Sixth Street, Bowden, Adelaide.
October 24. Until November 3.

“Jules and Tom are on an old fishing boat. They’ve borrowed it. It’s only pretty small. The anchor is down, so the boat just drifts as far as the anchor line lets it.” These words are projected on to the back of the stark white set for The Split, an intriguing new play from Melbourne writer Sarah Hamilton.

The scene …

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September 10, 2019

Reviewing theatrical performances with Murray Bramwell

Filed under: 2019,Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre
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October 28, 2018

Young recruits search for meaning

Filed under: 2018,Adelaide Companies,Theatre

Lines
by Pamela Carter (developed with Jay Miller)
Theatre Republic
The Bakehouse Theatre, Adelaide.
October 26. Tickets: $25- $35. Bookings bakehousetheatre.com
Duration: 75 minutes.
Until November 10.

When young men join the army what do they hope for ? Is it really a choice or a last resort ? Is it to serve Queen and country, or to be part of a Mark Wahlberg movie ? Originated by London’s Yard Theatre and adapted for Australian audiences, Pamela Carter’s Lines introduces …

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September 25, 2018

Struggle for truth in a police state

Filed under: 2018,Adelaide Companies,Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

Welcome the Bright World
by Stephen Sewell.
House of Sand in association with
State Theatre Company South Australia.
Queen’s Theatre, Adelaide.
September 21. Tickets: $22- $42. Bookings 131 246 or online
Duration 2 hours 25 minutes (including interval)
Until October 6.

Welcome the Bright World and welcome back Stephen Sewell. His turbulent, engrossing, digressive, disputative drama has been greatly missed. It is 36 years since Nimrod first staged their Welcome, and, while others of Sewell’s works, with their glorious …

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September 10, 2018

Punchy monologues are spot on

Filed under: 2018,Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

Solo :
Bitch Boxer by Charlotte Josephine.
Sea Wall by Simon Stephens.
Flying Penguin Productions.
Goodwood Institute Theatre, 166 Goodwood Road, Adelaide.
September 6. Tickets: $22- $32. Bookings 131 246 or online.
Duration 1 hour 50 minutes (including interval)
Until September 16.

Chloe Jackson is an Olympic hopeful. It is 2012 and, for the first time, women’s boxing is an official event for the London Games. Bitch Boxer, Charlotte Josephine’s monologue for UK company Snuff Box Theatre, is a …

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March 04, 2018

Ambitious staging brings out the dead in bright unbearable reality

Filed under: 2018,Adelaide Companies,Archive,Festival,Theatre

Adelaide Festival

Memorial
by Alice Oswald
Brink Productions
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre.
March 2. Tickets $30 – $79.
Bookings 131 246 or online.
Duration: 90 minutes (no interval)
Until March 6.

Alice Oswald’s long poem, Memorial, published in 2011, is well-named. It is elegiac and unforgettable. She calls it an “excavation” and “a kind of oral cemetery.” It is a list of 215 names, taken from Homer’s Iliad, of soldiers who died in the Trojan War. With clinical …

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October 17, 2017

Ambitious drama of a family in crisis offers a moving experience

Filed under: 2017,Adelaide Companies,Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

Angelique
by Isthisyours ?
Presented by Insite Arts and Adelaide Festival Centre.
Her Majesty’s Theatre.
October 14.
Tickets: $25-$37. Bookings : 131 246 or online.
Duration: 1hour 50 minutes no interval.
Until October 21.

The five women who comprise Adelaide company isthisyours ? have been making their particular brand of impish, culturally savvy theatre for almost ten years. But for their latest venture, Angelique, they are not in a makeshift Fringe venue, they have the full proscenium arch of …

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