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 …
Continue Reading Back to topThe 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 …
Continue Reading Back to topThree 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, …
Continue Reading Back to top2001
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, …
Continue Reading Back to top27 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 …
Continue Reading Back to top24 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 …
Continue Reading Back to topMurray 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 …
Continue Reading Back to topLife 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, …
Continue Reading Back to topHoly 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 …
Continue Reading Back to top24 August, 2001
Murray Bramwell
Jennifer in Security
by Noelle Janaczewska
Vitalstatistix
Waterside, Port Adelaide
ends September 1.
Odeon Theatre, Norwood
4 – 8 September.
Jennifer is in a jam after being down-sized from retail. Then, when her Excel breaks down, she is helped out by the blokes at Oakhurst Security and she talks herself into a job. Now, in her white shirt, black tie, dark windbreaker and with everything but a Colt revolver hanging from her belt, she works …
Continue Reading Back to top