murraybramwell.com

October 01, 1998

ADELAIDE Theatre

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

1998

Making it New

Murray Bramwell reports on what’s been doing in theatre in Adelaide

It is now more than a year since the Day of the Long Knives. Well, it seemed like that when, in mid-October 1997, it was announced that the Australia Council was withdrawing triennial funding for a number of Adelaide’s long established theatre companies. Carouselle, the talented puppet group was one, Junction Theatre another, Magpie2, the newly badged youth wing of State Theatre got clipped after …

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Crimes and Misdemeanours

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,Theatre

Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love
by Brad Fraser
State Theatre
Optima Playhouse

Speaking in Tongues
by Andrew Bovell
Griffin Theatre Company
Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is now ten years since Brad Fraser’s audacious play was first performed in his hometown in Edmonton, Alberta. But time has been good to this stylishly constructed account of the young and the restless. With almost instinctive flair Fraser captures the nerve and pulse of his characters, locating them …

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September 02, 1998

ADELAIDE Theatre

Filed under: Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

1998

Murray Bramwell

Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love by Brad Fraser. Director: Rosalba Clemente. Designer: Robert Kemp. Lighting: Geoff Cobham. Composer: Stuart Day. State Theatre South Australia, Optima Playhouse.

Moliere’s The Misanthrope adapted by Victoria Hill based on an original concept by Tim Maddock. Director and designer: Tim Maddock. Lighting: Geoff Cobham. Costume design: Gaelle Mellis. Brink Productions. Balcony Theatre.

As its meandering title suggests Brad Fraser’s hit play from 1988 is concerned with eros and …

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September 01, 1998

Positives and Negatives

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

Morde
by Paul Rees
Theatre Praxis
Lion Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Sometimes an event occurs which is so extraordinary and complete in its symbolic value that it seems definitively dramatic. The story of Mordechai Vanunu must have seemed so to Adelaide based writer Paul Rees. The Israeli defence worker who photographed evidence of his country’s nuclear capability and then, while hiding out in a wayside chapel in King’s Cross in Sydney, made arrangements to expose the information in The …

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August 01, 1998

On top of the world

Filed under: 2020,Archive,Australian Texts,Interstate,Theatre

On Top of the World
Europe
by Michael Gow
Melbourne Theatre Company
The Space

After a whistlestop tour of regional centres from Wagga and Launceston to Griffith and Russell Street, the MTC production of Europe has set up for what deserves to be a successful season in the Space.

For one thing, it is a good play and a keen reminder that Michael Gow deserves being made a fuss of. It is also a play that says more about history …

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Scotched

Filed under: Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

1998

Macbeth

William Shakespeare

State Theatre

Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The last time we saw Shakespeare performed in the Space was Neil Armfield’s Belvoir Company B repertory season of Hamlet and The Tempest. It was excellent chamber work which used the venue to great advantage. So it was a very great pity when Richard Roxburgh, playing Hamlet, did his cruciate on the second night, forcing the cancellation of an exemplary production.

The contrast with State Theatre’s ill-judged Macbeth…

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Vox Angelica, Vox Humana

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

1998

My Vicious Angel

Christine Evans

Vitalstatistix

Waterside

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

With its charter as a National Women’s Theatre, Vitalstatistix has set itself a large task. But with Christine Evans’ new play My Vicious Angel the claim has taken tangible form. This fine work has been brought to life- given wings, as the playwright puts it- by an able cast and production team.

Imogen Thomas has created a simple, and portable, set consisting of a vertical steel climbing frame …

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July 01, 1998

Family Ties

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

1998

East of Eden

John Steinbeck

adapted by Rob Croser

Independent Theatre

Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Independent Theatre has had a continuing relationship with the works of John Steinbeck for a while now. Several years ago the company presented Frank Galati’s stage adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath and now, with the benediction of Elaine Steinbeck, the writer’s widow, director Rob Croser has taken East of Eden and staged it in the Playhouse.

It is a hugely ambitious project …

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Journeys

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,Theatre

1998

Up the Road

John Harding

Company B Belvoir/Playbox

Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is very rarely that we go to the theatre and experience the immediacy of issues of the day. But that is what it was like to see Company B Belvoir’s production of John Harding’s Up the Road just three days after the Queensland election. Not that the play has been contrived for relevance or, even, that  anyone could have predicted, when it was listed for …

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June 01, 1998

Soap Opera

Filed under: Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

Master Class
by Terrence McNally
State Theatre South Australia/Adelaide Festival Centre
Optima Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Master Class is New York-based playwright, Terrence McNally’s account of sessions Maria Callas held at the Juilliard School of Music between October 1971 and March 1972. These classes, as Rodney Fisher’s informative program notes remind us, took place at a difficult time for La Divina. Her career was, by this time – like her voice – if not in shreds, at least in …

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