1990
Tracy Chapman
with Paul Kelly
Thebarton Theatre
February, 1990.
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
Every now and then you hear a new single that you just know is going to be a big noise. Like Rickie Lee Jones’ Chuck E’s in Love or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage – or Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car. The interchange of guitar riff and lilting vocal is captivating – and the lyric, like Paul Simon’s The Boxer, is a miniature movie so perfect that it doesn’t …
Continue Reading Back to top1990
Adelaide Festival
Murray Bramwell
It is now only twelve sleeps before the 16th Adelaide Festival opens its many gates, doors and curtains. Already some shows have sold out and others are not far from it. The Vienna Singverein’s Requiem with Erich Bergel and the Sydney Symphony has completely sold out and you will soon have to sing for tickets to their unaccompanied concert of choral music. Some Elder Hall concerts have sold out- including those by Paco Pena and …
Continue Reading Back to top1990
Murray Bramwell
I first met John Gaden just over four years ago when his appointment as Artistic Director of the State Theatre had just been announced and he had flown in to meet the Adelaide theatre faithful.He confided to me that he was being forced to consume tea and scones in life-threatening quantities but with characteristic courteousy and pragmatism,he circulated without demur. Gaden has continued to conduct this tea and scones diplomacy throughout his tenure with State because, to …
Continue Reading Back to topRing Around the Moon
byJean Anouilh, adapted by Christopher Fry
State Theatre Company
Playhouse, December 1989.
The State Theatre Company has closed shop for the year with Rodney Fisher’s production of Anouilh’s L’Invitation au Chateau, better known, having been turned over-easy by Christopher Fry, as Ring Around the Moon. Written in 1947 it was first presented to English audiences in 1950 by Peter Brook . He called it a “charade with music” and its enormous success, it has been suggested, …
Continue Reading Back to top1989
The Rover by Aphra Behn
State Theatre Company of South Australia
The Playhouse, Adelaide, June 1989.
then York Theatre and Seymour Centre, Sydney.
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
“All women together should let flowers fall on the tomb of Aphra Behn … for it is she who earned them the right to speak their minds.” Thus wrote Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own. But it would be mistaken to perpetuate the notion that Behn was the first, or …
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