murraybramwell.com

July 01, 2002

Another Country

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

2002

Despoiled Shore

Medeamaterial

Landscape with Argonauts

The Border Project

Queen’s Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The Border Project is a new company committed, you might say, to pushing the boundaries. And with their first venture, based on the texts of German writer Heiner Muller, they have taken on the themes of exile, persecution and betrayal. Muller uses the story of Medea, the sorceress who betrays her father and slaughters her brother in order to help her lover Jason steal …

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June 01, 2002

Cold Comfort Farm

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,Theatre

The Beauty Queen of Leenane
by Martin McDonagh
Sydney Theatre Company
with The Druid Theatre and Royal Court
Optima Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

There are nearly as many cliches about Ireland as there are people willing to perpetuate them. It’s not just the leprechaun pubs and the soft core music – it’s as though the whole place has become a theme park. James Joyce once said Ireland was the mother that ate her farrow. Nowadays, she’d sell them to …

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Great and Small

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

The Great Man
by David Williamson

State Theatre Company
Dunstan Playhouse
May, 2002

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

David Williamson has an excellent instinct for currency. Not the folding kind, although his present London show won’t be doing his wallet any harm. I mean the currency of ideas and manners, the zeitgeist writ large, small or merely fashionable. He has done the professions, he has splendidly done footy, he has looked at the etiquette of wealth, or at least of not …

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March 01, 2002

Three arts projects

Filed under: Archive,International,Theatre

Three Arts Projects

3 Dark Tales
Theatre O
Scott Theatre

Kayassine
Les Arts Sauts
Torrens Parade Ground

Hopeless Games
fabrik Potsdam & DO Theatre
Union Hall

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Theatre O from the UK is a hypermobile company which uses the signature performance techniques of Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. Their Edinburgh Festival hit, 3 Dark Tales is one of three international productions being offered in the Adelaide Fringe program by Arts Projects Australia.

Using two heavy costume racks, …

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December 01, 2001

Buried Lives

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

2001

A Lie of the Mind

by Sam Shepard

Brink Productions

Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The second and final Brink production for the year is also an American play. Sam Shepard’s  A Lie of the Mind makes an interesting pair with the company’s co-production with State Theatre back in June. That was Killer Joe, Tracy Letts’ grim trailer park tragicomedy of love, and death, for sale. Both plays are set in the poor white margins, one in Texas, …

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November 30, 2001

Adelaide Theatre

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

27 Nov 2001
Murray Bramwell

A Lie of the Mind
by Sam Shepard. Brink Productions.
The Space, Adelaide Festival Centre.
Ends 1 December.

What is a lie of the mind ? In Sam Shepard’s play of that name, his troubled central character Jake says – “These things – in my head – lie to me. Everything lies. Tells me a story.“ These lies are fears, jealousies, suspicions and fixations. They have murky origins in a half-remembered past and have driven …

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October 25, 2001

Adelaide Theatre

Filed under: Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

24 October, 2001
Murray Bramwell

The Dying Gaul
by Craig Lucas

State Theatre Company of South Australia,
Festival Centre Space, Adelaide, ends 10 November, 2001.

The Dying Gaul referred to in the title of State Theatre’s current production is an ancient Roman statue depicting a young, naked man from an opposing army, represented in all his vulnerable humanity. In Craig Lucas’s play-about-a-script, Robert is a screen writer who uses the Dying Gaul as a metaphor for a work of art …

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October 24, 2001

Adelaide Theatre – The Dying Gaul

Filed under: Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

Murray Bramwell

The Dying Gaul
by Craig Lucas

State Theatre Company of South Australia,
Festival Centre Space, Adelaide, ends 10 November.

The Dying Gaul referred to in the title of State Theatre’s current production is an ancient Roman statue depicting a young, naked man from an opposing army, represented in all his vulnerable humanity. In Craig Lucas’s play-about-a-script, Robert is a screen writer who uses the Dying Gaul as a metaphor for a work of art that creates compassion even …

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October 01, 2001

Causes and Karma

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

Life After George
by Hannie Rayson

Melbourne Theatre Company
Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Since its first performances in January last year Hannie Rayson’s MTC commission, Life After George, has had an impressive trajectory. There were extended seasons in Melbourne and numerous awards and nominations including the Miles Franklin, a stint at the Brisbane Festival and now, since July, a sixteen town whistlestop tour from North Queensland to Launcestoun.

It is not hard to see the play’s appeal – Rayson, …

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September 01, 2001

Contested Ground

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

Holy Day
by Andrew Bovell

State Theatre Company
Playhouse
August, 2001

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The pursuit of new Australian works for the stage is an incessant one. Artistic Directors, particularly of state theatre companies, pore over new scripts in the hope of turning them into productions which will capture audiences with their relevance and truthfulness. Over the past twenty years the demand for such plays has been so keen that any writer achieving a modicum of success has been …

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