1985 « murraybramwell.com

December 21, 1985

Mirrors of Memory

12 Edmondstone Street
By David Malouf
Chatto & Windus

David Malouf’s latest book, 12 Edmondstone Street is an interesting combination of memoir and personal history because it seeks to draw a distinction between the two. As memoir it recalls Malouf’s childhood in Brisbane as a second generation Australian of Lebanese descent growing up in the 1940s when a war had brought Australia face to face with the imperatives of identity and cultural and political choice. As personal history the book …

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December 06, 1985

Sparing an audience unease

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

Adelaide’s Stage Company has made a strong finish to its 1985 season with John Noble’s production of David Williamson’s Sons of Cain which has opened in the Festival Centre Space.

As readers of these columns already know, Sons of Cain is a drame a clef you don’t need to be a locksmith to pick. It deals with a certain national weekly with a feisty editor and tenacious journalists committed to investigative reporting and shows why there are a thousand stories …

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December 01, 1985

Theatresportsmania: The Dramatic Arts on Staminade

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

It is 1.30pm on a Saturday afternoon and there is a queue five deep stretching from Union Hall at the University of Adelaide right along the Barr Smith lawn. The crowd is made up of high school students, families with young kids, punks, new romantics, old romantics and persons of the stage all shoving gently but firmly for fear that the tickets will sell out before they get a chance to palm out $5 ($2 concession) for the main event.…

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September 20, 1985

Jumble of disparate elements

Filed under: Archive,National Times,State Theatre Company,Theatre

The State Theatre Company production of Tom Stoppard’s On the Razzle, directed by Peter King, has opened at the Festival Theatre Playhouse in Adelaide.

Its unscheduled appearance follows a late scratching by the commissioned play The Horizon Papers which, it was announced, will now be held over for the SA Sesquicentenary celebrations next year.

On the Razzle is based on a 19th century Viennese play by Johan Nestroy which was a source also for Thornton Wilder’s The Merchant of Yon…

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August 28, 1985

Journey to the future

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Australian Texts,National Times,Theatre

Too Young for Ghosts, by Janis Balodis, is being performed by Adelaide’s Stage Company in the Festival Centre Space.

This play uses displacement both as theme and technique. It describes seven Latvian emigres following their arrival in Australia in 1945 and interweaves the narrative with a speculative account of Ludwig Leichhardt’s ill-fated expedition from the Gulf of Carpenteria southwest to Perth in 1847.

The play is audacious and assured in its use of flashback and narrative shifts which, though complex, …

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August 16, 1985

A Sense of Amiably Drifting

Filed under: Archive,National Times

Troupe’s latest production, The Floating Palais by Gavin Strawhan (at the Old Unley Town Hall Adelaide) is another of the company’s everybody-join- in ventures in the style of the Kelly Dance and the Centenary Dance.

This time the setting is the late 1920s when a dance hall called The Floating Palais was a popular venue located on Adelaide’s River Torrens.

The occasion is a works outing for friends and employees of the Shiny Shoe Company with music provided by the …

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August 08, 1985

Of Fire and Satire

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

The South Australian State Theatre Company’s latest commission, Muse of Fire, by Nigel Krauth, is currently playing in the Playhouse in Adelaide.

Krauth takes the prologue from Henry V as his text – “O for a muse of fire, that would ascend/ the brightest heaven of invention” – and has written a witty, satiric melodrama based on the exploits of George Trafford, an indefatigable theatre manager whose troupe performs at the Empire Theatre in Sydney in 1910.…

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July 19, 1985

It wasn’t only a weak end

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Australian Texts,National Times,Theatre

The Weekenders, by Ray Harding is the Adelaide Stage Company’s latest production in The Space.
Harding has had TV successes including the recent tele-movie, I Can‘t Get Started. Unfortunately he writes less effectively for the more precise requirements of the stage.

The play concerns three couples each of whom believes they have the exclusive use of a shack on the river for the weekend. Complications arise when it transpires that a divorced couple and their new lovers, …

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July 05, 1985

Tapping top talent

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,National Times,Theatre

Stepping Out (Adelaide, Opera Theatre), directed by Rodney Fisher, is certain to be a success considering the appeal of Rowena Wallace and Colette Mann as television celebrities and the enduring reputation of Carol Raye and Nancye Hayes as stage performers.

They are supported by an able cast including Isabelle Anderson, Ron Challinor and Margot Lee. It is a pity, then, that a more worthwhile play wasn’t found as a vehicle for this formidable Australian talent.

The play, written by Richard …

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June 21, 1985

Ravelling up the Fringe

Filed under: Archive,Fringe,National Times

The Fringe Festival of Cabaret in Adelaide continues the reputation of Fringe festivals which have provided many of the sleepers, surprises and outright hits of the Adelaide Festival season.

Since the Festival itself is having a bye this year the Fringe has been at centre stage in the Living Arts Centre which has turns at being the empty hulk of Fowler’s “Lion” factory and the venue for some of the liveliest cabaret comedy and music ever seen in Adelaide.

The …

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