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 …

1998

The Herbal Bed
Peter Whelan
Sydney Theatre Company
Optima Playhouse, October 1998.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Very little is known about Susanna Hall, nee Shakespeare, but playwright Peter Whelan has made every skerrick count. It is verifiable that in 1607 the elder daughter of the greatest dead white male in the history of the English language married John Hall, a successful physician with a flair for herbal remedies. It is also recorded that she brought defamation charges against John …

Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love
by Brad Fraser
State Theatre
Optima Playhouse

Speaking in Tongues
by Andrew Bovell
Griffin Theatre Company
Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is now ten years since Brad Fraser’s audacious play was first performed in his hometown in Edmonton, Alberta. But time has been good to this stylishly constructed account of the young and the restless. With almost instinctive flair Fraser captures the nerve and pulse of his characters, locating them …

1998

Up the Road

John Harding

Company B Belvoir/Playbox

Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is very rarely that we go to the theatre and experience the immediacy of issues of the day. But that is what it was like to see Company B Belvoir’s production of John Harding’s Up the Road just three days after the Queensland election. Not that the play has been contrived for relevance or, even, that  anyone could have predicted, when it was listed for …