Metamorphosis and Bawky Play, Red Shed Company
ABC, Patch Theatre Company
Soft Targets, Troupe
The Red Shed Company continues to provide distinctive and committed theatre as indicated by their most recent double bill – Bawky Play by David Carlin and an adaptation of an adaptation of Berkoff’s Kafka’s Metamorphosis.
The story of Gregor Samsa, bureaucratic functionary, who wakes up to find he has become a giant insect is more than seventy years old. But …
Continue Reading Back to topSemipreciousness
Emerald City
by David Williamson
Sydney Theatre Company
Playhouse
Emerald City, David Williamson’s latest play about selling out in Sydney, sold out in Sydney, and has been doing business hand over fist here as well.
It is not hard to see why. Williamson is one of our most assured writers of dialogue and has a shrewd eye, if not for the manners and prejudices of our times, at least for those of regular theatre audiences. Emerald City, …
Continue Reading Back to topShepherd on the Rocks
By Patrick White
Playhouse, Festival Centre
In wanting to honour Patrick White on the occasion of his 75th birthday, the State Theatre Company did him little service by staging the world premiere of his recent play, Shepherd on the Rocks.
The story is based on the bizarre case from the Thirties of the Rector of Stifikey (pron. ‘Stookey ‘), the Rev Harold Davidson, an Anglican sky pilot with earthy ideas about his ministry. A former …
Continue Reading Back to topShepherd on the Rocks
by Patrick White
State Theatre Company
Playhouse
Patrick White’s plays have a long association with Adelaide from the controversial first season of The Season at Sarsparilla to the more recent Lighthouse productions which revealed Netherwood and hailed Signal Driver. All that history notwithstanding, the State Theatre Company’s decision to stage Shepherd on the Rocks was an unfortunate one. The production does little credit to either White or the company, and, all things considered, they would …
Continue Reading Back to topThe Pretenders
Thebarton Theatre
In many ways Chrissie Hynde is soul companion to songwriters Ellie Greenwich and Carole King, who between them produced most of the definitive popular music released in the early sixties by Liberty Records and Phil Spector’s own Philles label. Like Leslie Gore, Sandie Shaw and Dionne Warwick, Chrissie Hynde’s music is Aching Pop – soulful, histrionic and bitterly aware of the chains of love.
The last time the Pretenders toured in early 1982 they gave one …
Continue Reading Back to topCome Out 1987 was a testing time for youth theatre. After the sporadic bookings in 1985, directors Malcolm Moore and Kerry Comerford were faced with the task of not only compiling an appealing programme, but also filling theatre seats. They did well on both counts. Also, with ASSITEJ, the international jamboree of youth theatre heavies, being held in Adelaide at the same time, Come Out was on International display.
Director Michael Fitzgerald made it plain that ASSITEJ might turn into …
Continue Reading Back to topDavid Holman talks to Murray Bramwell.
In Adelaide in time for Come Out, David Holman might have been forgiven for thinking that his works were the main fare for the Festival. For a start, Magpie were doing two plays which Holman originated in Australia. No Worries, one of the great sleepers from the 1984 Adelaide Festival and The Small Poppies, one of the most keenly anticipated plays from the 1986 Festival. In addition, Frankie, the young people’s opera …
Continue Reading Back to topI’m Not a Racist, but …
by Richard Lawrance
Multicultural Youth Theatre, SA
Directed by Tessa Bremner
Cast: Vicki London, David Saddler, Aimee Thomas,
Nicolas Primaro, Raphael Nguyen, Peter Nguyen, Ha Tran.
On the face of it the flyers for the Multicultural Youth Theatre’s production were not promising. (Narelle is fifteen, alone and pregnant. Cong and Trinh are trying to hack it in this strange new country. Dog Track’s in debt and on the run and Petar’s caught between the …
Continue Reading Back to topSong For the Navigator
by Michael Cowell
Honolulu Theatre for Youth
Directed by John Kauffman
Set Design: Joseph Dodd
Costume Design: Laura Crow
Lighting: Lloyd S. Riford III
Amongst a mixed bag of Australian productions at the ASSITEJ Congress, the Honolulu Theatre for Youth’s play is a likeable piece but not one to put fear in the hearts of local theatre practitioners. Song For the Navigator by Michael Cowell was commissioned by the HTY, as they describe it, “to celebrate …
Continue Reading Back to topMy Place
by Christine Anketell
Patch Theatre. South Australia
Directed by: Christine Anketell
Design: Kathryn Sproul
Music: Stuart Day
Production Manager: Richard Meyman
Cast: Joanna Cooper, Gwenda Helsham, Karen Inwood
There’s no place like home, as Dorothy once said to her red shoes. And as it is the International Year of Shelter for The Homeless, the Patch Theatre Company have used it as the occasion for their Come Out 87 contribution, My Place.
Perhaps one reason why the International …
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