1996
Festival Centre
Adelaide, October 1, 1996.
Murray Bramwell
As their name suggests, Clannad is a family affair. The Brennans and Duggans. Or more precisely – Maire Ni Bhraonain, her brother Ciaran and twin uncles, Noel and Pol O Dugain, who form the core of a band which has variously included a songwriting brother, Pol, and a singing sister, Eithne, now known to more than thirty million record buyers as Enya.
For twenty five years and over twenty seven albums …
Continue Reading Back to topGood Works
Nick Enright
Playbox
in association with Adelaide Festival Centre Trust
Space
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
It has been too long since Nick Enright’s writing has featured on the Adelaide stage. Can it be On the Wallaby -back in 1981 ? So far, recent works such as A Property of the Clan and Blackrock have not been seen here, although we will soon be seeing double with State Theatre’s revival of his adaptation of The Venetian Twins coming up …
Continue Reading Back to topTerminus
Daniel Keene
Red Shed Company
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
The Red Shed Company continues its productive collaboration with Melbourne playwright Daniel Keene with one of their best productions in some time. Terminus, Keene’s newest work commissioned by the Shed, follows other company successes- All Souls, the two-handers Low and Silent Partner and SA Premier’s Award winner, Because You Are Mine.
Keene’s plays, though varied in subject matter, have distinctive tropes. Densely poetic, socially deterministic and infused with dread they …
Continue Reading Back to topSkylight
David Hare
Melbourne Theatre Company
in association with Adelaide Festival Centre Trust
Space
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
It has been a good time for The Adelaide Festival Centre Trust and a good time for the Space. The so-called World Theatre program brought in Nick Enright’s Good Works and now David Hare’s Skylight. They are both good plays and in the modest confines of the Space they have also given us absorbing performances.
David Hare’s writing suggests many things. The …
Continue Reading Back to topSummer of the Seventeeth Doll
Ray Lawler
Melbourne Theatre Company
in association with State Theatre
Playhouse
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
I have to say that I greeted the revival of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll with some trepidation. Its reputation, shall we say its legend, is a kind of tyranny – not least probably, to Ray Lawler himself. The Doll is an acknowledged turning point, a setting for historical watches, a kind of cultural synecdoche. It is also a convenient …
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