murraybramwell.com

April 11, 2019

Three women storm a male bastion to revel in ocker posturing and gender satire

Filed under: 2019,Archive,Australian Texts,State Theatre Company,Theatre

The Club
by David Williamson
State Theatre Company and Kojo presents an isthisyours? and Insite Arts production.
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
April 9. Tickets: $32- $61. Bookings 131 246 or online
Duration 2 hours 20 minutes (including interval)
Until April 20.

First performed in 1977, The Club ranks among the best of David Williamson’s extensive dramatic repertoire. Set in an unnamed AFL football club, its brisk farce and pungent satire captures the niggle, back-biting and shameless hypocrisy of male …

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March 25, 2019

More equal than others

Filed under: 2019,Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

Animal Farm
by George Orwell.
Adaptation by Geordie Brookman.
State Theatre Company South Australia.
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
March 22. Tickets: $32- $61. Bookings 131 246 or online
Duration 1 hour 25 minutes (no interval)
Until March 30.

When Animal Farm, George Orwell’s celebrated novella, was first published in 1945 it was blithely sub-titled : “A Fairy Story”. But it was anything but an ethereal fiction. A year later, the author, himself a committed democratic socialist, wrote : …

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March 15, 2019

Adelaide Festival – Satire a hilarious way of tackling minor troubles

Filed under: 2019,Archive,Festival,International,Theatre

Ulster American
by David Ireland
Traverse Theatre Company
Dunstan Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
March 13. Bookings: adelaidefestival.com
Tickets: $40- $79. Duration: 1 hour 25 mins (no interval)
Until March 17.

Ulster American, a new play by Belfast-born playwright David Ireland, is a raucous, funny, disconcerting satire on the cascading consequences of an ill-considered remark where, through social media, the private can become indelibly public. “I grew up during the Troubles,”writes Ireland,”I’m well aware of the dangers of tribalism and …

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March 11, 2019

Adelaide Festival – Harrowing account of lives in limbo

Filed under: 2019,Archive,Festival,International,Theatre

Manus
by Leila Hekmatnia, Keivan Sarreshteh
Verbatim Theatre Group
AC Arts Main Theatre
March 7. Duration 75 minutes.

Devised and performed by the Iranian Verbatim Theatre Group from Tehran, Manus tells the stories of eight asylum seekers leaving persecution and personal danger in Iran, and the events leading to indefinite incarceration on Nauru and then, Manus Island in PNG.

Director, researcher and performer, Nazanin Sahamizadeh is the company’s driving force and the text for Manus has been gathered from her …

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March 07, 2019

Adelaide Festival – Hope survives bitter reality of refugee’s life

Filed under: 2019,Archive,Festival,Theatre

A Man of Good Hope
Young Vic and Isango Ensemble
Based on the book by Jonny Steinberg
Royalty Theatre. March 5.
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com Tickets: $30- $89.
Duration: 2 hours 30 mins (including interval)
Until March 11.

Asad Abdullahi is an ordinary man with a remarkable life story, re-told to author Jonny Steinberg and published as A Man of Good Hope. In 2016 it was turned into this compelling operatic production from South Africa’s Isango Ensemble, with seasons at London’s …

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March 06, 2019

Adelaide Festival – ‘Experiencing’ cruelty and its consequences through transparent acting

Filed under: 2019,Archive,Festival,International,Theatre

La Reprise. Histoire(s) du theatre (1)
Conceived and directed by Milo Rau
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
March 4. Bookings: adelaidefestival.com
Tickets: $30- $79. Duration: 90 mins (no interval)
Until March 7.

La Reprise, (The Repetition) a Belgian-German collaboration developed by director, Milo Rau, is an anatomy of a murder. It is also a careful dissection of the business and strategies of theatre. This intriguing essay on human transgression wittily explores its own best ways for making us, not …

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February 28, 2019

Daily Review – Planet Music

Filed under: 2019,Archive,Music,Theatre,Womadelaide

Daily Review
Planet Music
WOMADelaide 2019

WOMADelaide : Adelaide’s leading music festival opens on March 8 for three days and four nights. Program Manager Annette Tripodi talks with Murray Bramwell about this year’s line-up.

It is a fact of life for annual festivals that no sooner has one taken its final curtain than next year’s model, not only begins, but is well under way. Scoping out and signing performers from across the world is a continuing task and subject to …

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February 20, 2019

Daily Review – Adelaide Fringe 2019

Filed under: 2019,Archive,Fringe,International,Theatre

Michael Griffiths – By Request

Michael Griffiths
Le Cascadeur
Garden of Unearthly Delights
February 15 – 24. 60 mins.

Michael Griffiths – By Request is fun for the asking. Performing for a short season in Le Cascadeur before moving on to another show with Carlotta, and then back to GC duetting with Amelia Ryan for the Newton-John and Allen tribute, Livvy and Pete , Griffiths is having a busy Fringe.

And it is not surprising. He is a very winning …

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February 19, 2019

Outstanding crop of creativity

Filed under: 2019,Archive,Fringe,International,Theatre

Adelaide Fringe

Outstanding crop of creativity

Build a Rocket
by Christopher York
Stephen Joseph Theatre and Tara Finney Productions
February 13
Holden Street Theatres until March 17

Games
by Henry Naylor
Gilded Balloon and Redbeard Theatre
February 13.
Holden Street Theatres until March 16.

Extinguished Things
by Molly Taylor
February 13.
Holden Street Theatres until March 3.
Bookings : adelaidefringe.com.au or phone 1300 621 255.
Duration: each show 60 minutes.

With Friday night’s Street Party and Yabarra : the Gathering …

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December 16, 2018

The Best of 2018

Filed under: 2018,2019,Archive

“When you hear music,“ jazz saxophonist Eric Dolphy once remarked, “After it’s over, it’s gone, in the air. You can never capture it again.”

In varying degrees that is true of all live performances. They have their moment, their season, and then are gone. Sometimes they remain vivid, but eventually, even excellent productions and outstanding performances drift into imperfect recollection and generalised hearsay. Maggie Smith once remarked- “Every performance is a ghost.”

I hope this website, for all its sometimes …

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