2004

The Comedy of Errors

by William Shakespeare

The Bell Shakespeare Company

Dunstan Playhouse, September, 2004.

Murray Bramwell

It is seven years since Bell Shakespeare last played in Adelaide and they return with a production full of fun and flair. Thought to be Shakespeare’s first play, The Comedy of Errors borrows freely from The Menaechmi by the Roman playwright Plautus, except that, not content with the confusion of one set of twins, Shakespeare goes double or nothing by adding twin …

The Beauty Queen of Leenane
by Martin McDonagh
Sydney Theatre Company
with The Druid Theatre and Royal Court
Optima Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

There are nearly as many cliches about Ireland as there are people willing to perpetuate them. It’s not just the leprechaun pubs and the soft core music – it’s as though the whole place has become a theme park. James Joyce once said Ireland was the mother that ate her farrow. Nowadays, she’d sell them to …

2001

Tivoli

A Dance Musical

by Graeme Murphy

The Australian Ballet

Sydney Dance Company

Festival Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The Tivoli Circuit represented a rich part of the history of Australian vaudeville and burlesque, and the two distinct spans of Tivoli entertainments – 1893 to 1929 and then 1931 to 1966 – cover more than seventy years. A fine and ranging subject, then, for inclusion in  Centenary of Federation celebrations, especially when many projects this year have proven lacklustre …

2000

Collected Stories

by Donald Margulies

Northside Theatre Company

with State Theatre and AFCT

Playhouse, October 2000

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Collected Stories might well have been entitled Recollected Stories because its subject is the writer’s responsibility to respect the privacy of others. Somewhere between the right to free trading in a good yarn and the obligation to protect the feelings and integrity of individuals there is a line- not to be written – but drawn.

It is, of course, …

The Judas Kiss
David Hare

Company B Belvoir
Optima Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

There is only one thing worse than being talked about, observed Oscar Wilde, and that is not being talked about. He and his shade can have little fear of that. Especially as the Nineties offer us so many centenaries. Of his successes – publications, lecture tours and opening nights. And of the dark days, of trial, imprisonment and – hardly before the century he influenced had …