Hair
By Gerome Ragni, James Rado and Galt McDermott
Thebarton Theatre
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
By the time Hair opened at the Biltmore Theatre in New York in April 1968 many of the major happenings of Hippie history had already… happened. More than a year earlier in January 1967, twenty thousand turned up (and on) for the Human Be-In in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. That was the year of the Summer of Love, photogenically documented with lots of groovy …
Continue Reading Back to top1992
Hair
Gerome Ragni, James Rado and Galt McDermott
Thebarton Theatre
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
By the time Hair opened at the Biltmore Theatre in New York in April 1968 many of the major happenings of Hippie history had already happened. More than a year earlier in January 1967, twenty thousand turned up (and on) for the Human Be-In in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. That was the year of the Summer of Love, photogenically documented with lots of groovy …
Continue Reading Back to topWhat the Butler Saw
by Joe Orton
State Theatre Company
Playhouse
Joe Orton’s plays are not everybody’s cup of tee hee. There is humour that confirms our sense of the world and there is humour which unsettles it and Orton is definitely the latter. His comedy, all elliptical word play and glassy epigrams, has the mannered artificiality of Wilde. But unlike Oscar, Orton is not endearing. His is pitiless, unlikeable comedy and when he makes you laugh it often sticks …
Continue Reading Back to top1992
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
William Shakespeare
‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore
John Ford
State Theatre Company
Playhouse
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
Simon Phillips’ season of classics in tandem, -Elizabethan and Jacobean, comedy and tragedy, dream and nightmare- is an ambitious one. It is physically demanding on actors, tricky to design and difficult to publicise. More than just works in repertory, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore have been joined at the hip, or more likely …
Continue Reading Back to top1992
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
William Shakespeare
‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore
John Ford
State Theatre Company
Playhouse
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
Simon Phillips’ season of classics in tandem, -Elizabethan and Jacobean, comedy and tragedy, dream and nightmare- is an ambitious one. It is physically demanding on actors, tricky to design and difficult to publicise. More than just works in repertory, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore have been joined at the hip, or more likely …
Continue Reading Back to topBirds of the Moon
by Anna O’Connor
Patch Theatre Centre
South Australia
Director- Dave Brown, Designer- Kerry Reid, Composer- John Shortis, Choreographer- Guy Detot, Performers- Rosalind Aylmore, Nic Hurcombe.
Birds of the Moon, Dave Brown’s first production as Artistic Director of Patch Theatre Centre has been touring junior primaries with a simple tale of two migrating shearwaters. Otherwise known as muttonbirds, shearwaters breed in the islands of Bass Strait and along the southern coast of the mainland. Barely have they …
Continue Reading Back to topSurely we’re all mad people, and they
Whom we think are, are not.
-The Revenger’s Tragedy
Is the world mad ?
I’m not paid to quarrel with accepted facts.
– Joe Orton
Joe Orton’s plays are disquietingly funny not because of their nihilism but because of their relentless logic. Few satirists are as unsparing of human behaviour and of human institutions. The lineage probably begins with Kafka. In The Trial, the authorities knock at the door of Josef K, arrest …
Continue Reading Back to topI, CONnolly
Gerry Connolly
Space
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
The title of Gerry Connolly’s latest one person show is indicative of the performer himself. The literate pun has the same chill of cautious pre-meditation and self consciousness that characterises this and Connolly’s other live work. Shielded by television post-production or confined in the careful structure of something like Clarke and Stevenson’s Royal Commission, Connolly’s gifted impersonations have a steely presence. In his own show he seems to lack that last …
Continue Reading Back to top1992
Wilson Pickett
Thebarton Theatre
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
It would have been interesting to know how many people who bought tickets for the Wilson Pickett show thought he was Irish. Certainly his fortunes have received some word-of-mouth resuscitation from Alan Parker’s 2-D movie about a Dublin pub band. Much mentioned but never seen, Mr Pickett served as a grail hero for the Commitments, a retro-soul tribute band playing note-for-note Stax and Atlantic hits from the mid sixties.
The fact …
Continue Reading Back to top1992
Ramaz’ Gala Performance
Rustaveli Company
Space
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
When the Rustaveli Company performed in Australia in 1986 they remained imprinted in the DNA of everyone who saw them. The most distinguished state company from the distinguished theatrical state of Georgia, the Rustavelis have toured extensively in Europe and North America presenting their unique readings of classic works – Shakespeare, a staple in Georgian theatre since last century, and Brecht, whose Threepenny Opera and Caucasian Chalk Circle are …
Continue Reading Back to top