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December 16, 2018

The Best of 2018

Filed under: 2018,2019,Archive

“When you hear music,“ jazz saxophonist Eric Dolphy once remarked, “After it’s over, it’s gone, in the air. You can never capture it again.”

In varying degrees that is true of all live performances. They have their moment, their season, and then are gone. Sometimes they remain vivid, but eventually, even excellent productions and outstanding performances drift into imperfect recollection and generalised hearsay. Maggie Smith once remarked- “Every performance is a ghost.”

I hope this website, for all its sometimes …

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November 19, 2018

Revisiting the foreign country of the past

The Gods of Strangers
by Elena Carapetis
State Theatre Company South Australia
Dunstan Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
November 15. Tickets: $32- $67.
Bookings . Bookings 131 246 or online
Duration: 2 hours 40 mins (including interval)
Until December 2.

“If a stranger knocks, you let them in – they could be a god in disguise.” But the publicity notes for The Gods of Strangers, a tri-lingual commissioned work, by Adelaide playwright Elena Carapetis, do not mention it might also …

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November 14, 2018

Daily Review – OzAsia is a Festival to Remember

Daily Review

OzAsia is a Festival to Remember

In recent years OzAsia has become one of the highlights of Adelaide’s festival calendar but never more so than in 2018.
The hugely popular Moon Lantern Parade, cruelly thwarted by uncertain spring weather in recent years and cancelled several times, has benefited now that the festival begins in late October instead of a month earlier. More than 40,000 attended this year’s parade which featured contributions from ethnic community groups, schools, performance companies …

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November 05, 2018

OzAsia Festival 2018

Lines of Communication

Here is the Message You Asked for …Don’t Tell Anyone Else ;-)
Created by en? (What has happened ? How does it come to this ?)
Chunqiu Theatre Company, Dream Can.
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
November 1.
OzAsia concludes November 11.

OzAsia is in its final week in Adelaide and again highlights artistic director, Joseph Mitchell’s flair for finding the new and intriguing in Asian performance art. This time it is 33 year old Chinese director, …

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October 31, 2018

While I Was Waiting

OzAsia Festival
Adelaide.

While I Was Waiting
by Mohammad Al Attar
Directed by Omar Abusaada
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
October 30.

Four and a Half Stars

Murray Bramwell

At the Q&A, held after the first of only two performances of Syrian playwright, Mohammad Al Attar’s While I Was Waiting, someone asked the director, Omar Abusaada what message he wanted audiences to take away from the play. His reply was that he did not want his theatre to be …

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October 28, 2018

Young recruits search for meaning

Lines
by Pamela Carter (developed with Jay Miller)
Theatre Republic
The Bakehouse Theatre, Adelaide.
October 26. Tickets: $25- $35. Bookings bakehousetheatre.com
Duration: 75 minutes.
Until November 10.

When young men join the army what do they hope for ? Is it really a choice or a last resort ? Is it to serve Queen and country, or to be part of a Mark Wahlberg movie ? Originated by London’s Yard Theatre and adapted for Australian audiences, Pamela Carter’s Lines introduces …

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October 25, 2018

More new frontiers for OzAsia in 2018

Daily Review
More new frontiers for OzAsia in 2018

Murray Bramwell talks with OzAsia Artistic Director, Joseph Mitchell about his latest festival program.

Launched in 2006 by Adelaide Festival Centre director Douglas Gautier, OzAsia is now in its twelfth year and is looking more innovative and intriguing than ever. Since its inception the festival has expanded its horizons and become ever more inclusive. Already spanning Asia and South East Asia – China, Japan to Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, as …

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September 25, 2018

Struggle for truth in a police state

Welcome the Bright World
by Stephen Sewell.
House of Sand in association with
State Theatre Company South Australia.
Queen’s Theatre, Adelaide.
September 21. Tickets: $22- $42. Bookings 131 246 or online
Duration 2 hours 25 minutes (including interval)
Until October 6.

Welcome the Bright World and welcome back Stephen Sewell. His turbulent, engrossing, digressive, disputative drama has been greatly missed. It is 36 years since Nimrod first staged their Welcome, and, while others of Sewell’s works, with their glorious …

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September 10, 2018

Punchy monologues are spot on

Solo :
Bitch Boxer by Charlotte Josephine.
Sea Wall by Simon Stephens.
Flying Penguin Productions.
Goodwood Institute Theatre, 166 Goodwood Road, Adelaide.
September 6. Tickets: $22- $32. Bookings 131 246 or online.
Duration 1 hour 50 minutes (including interval)
Until September 16.

Chloe Jackson is an Olympic hopeful. It is 2012 and, for the first time, women’s boxing is an official event for the London Games. Bitch Boxer, Charlotte Josephine’s monologue for UK company Snuff Box Theatre, is a …

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August 30, 2018

Hallelujah to a compelling revival

That Eye, The Sky
A stage adaptation of Tim Winton’s novel
by Justin Monjo and Richard Roxburgh.
State Theatre Company South Australia.
Dunstan Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
August 28. Tickets: $32- $67. Bookings 131 246 or online
Duration: 100 minutes (no interval)
Until September 16.

Tim Winton wrote That Eye, the Sky when he was 25, describing it as the novel where his work turned a corner. In it he embraced a vigorous vernacular, and explored layers of belief, mysticism …

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