… Continue Reading Back to topDear Sir, While brevity is the soul of wit, I did not intend my review of the State Theatre Company’s Month of Sundays (Age Old Questions, March AR) to be quite that witty.
It would seem that there are times when even FAX fux up and this was one of them. A page of copy went missing in transmission and with it honourable mention of performances by actors Ron Haddrick, Brian James, Diane Smith and Carol Skinner in particular, as
January 01, 1988
Fooling with Lear
Dreamtime
Away
by Michael Gow
State Theatre Company
Playhouse
The State Theatre Company and director Aubrey Mellor have concluded another season with a strong production. But although done with flair last year’s Wild Honey was really just tizzied up minor Chekhov. This year’s work is a new Australian play of some distinction.
Away has been widely performed in the past two years – there have been three separate productions in the last month alone. Such fulsome attention might prove daunting for …
Continue Reading Back to topNovember 01, 1987
Acting Funny
Acting Funny
Rowan Atkinson
Opera Theatre.
It is often said that what makes comedy tick is timing. And Rowan Atkinson is expert at it. His performance is rehearsed down to the last pucker, the lines scan like iambic pentameters and it all works like a charm.
As part of the highly successful Not The Nine O’Clock News team, Atkinson’s comedy was distinctively visual and oddly endearing. He can, and has, sparred in more savage comic arenas with the pugnacious Mel …
Continue Reading Back to topOctober 01, 1987
The State of Play
John Gaden, Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company of South Australia, reflects in midseason.
I first met John Gaden in October last year when the State Theatre Company was announcing his appointment as its new AD. 1985 had been a troubled year for State with a number of productions in succession hitting the wall as the local press grew more toxic and audiences more disheartened .
So Gaden’s appointment was greeted warmly from all sides. As a popular actor …
Continue Reading Back to topA Sporting Chance
A Sporting Chance
by Katherine Thomson
Magpie Theatre Company SA
Directed by Chris Johnson
Design: Ken Wilby and Mark Thompson
Music: Ian Farr, Movement: Belinda Saltmarsh
Cast: Sharon LeRay, Michael Habib, Annabel Giles,
Michael Kitschke.
Work for Magpie’s A Sporting Chance began in April this year when Sydney playwright and actor, Katherine Thomson began researching attitudes toward sport among thirteen and fourteen year olds. She spoke to numbers of high school students-in particular from Fremont High School in Adelaide’s northern …
Continue Reading Back to topSeptember 01, 1987
Blood Sports
Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge – Patch Theatre Company
A Sporting Chance – Magpie Theatre Company
Blood Relations – Sydney Theatre Company/State Theatre Company
Having conjured up Possum Magic, South Australian writer Mem Fox and illustrator Julie Vivas followed with another highly successful picture book, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge. It has now been adapted for the stage by Sheryn Dee and Mem Fox and presented by the Patch Theatre Company in the Festival Centre Space.
Wilfrid has played to …
Continue Reading Back to topPale Intimations
Pale Intimations
Blood Relations
by David Malouf
State Theatre Company and Sydney
Theatre Company
The Playhous
When a writer of the stature of David Malouf turns to the theatre we are sure to have high expectations. But there is already enough evidence that novelists do not necessarily playwrights make. Locally, Nigel Krauth’s Muse of Fire, Barry Dickins’ Beaut/and, and, more recently Patrick White’s Shepherd on the Rocks have shown us that.
The reasons are not surprising. A novelist has complete …
Continue Reading Back to topAugust 01, 1987
Telling Works
The Winter’s Tale
State Theatre Company
A Touchy Subject
Vitalstatistix
There have been a number of productions of The Winter‘s Tale lately. But the State Theatre Company has made glorious summer with a version that represents some of its finest work to date. The Winter‘s Tale forms part of a cluster of plays in Artistic Director, John Gaden’s 1987 programme. It began with his and Gale Edward’s Much Ado About Nothing back in February and links with …
Continue Reading Back to topIntriguing
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Christopher Hampton
State Theatre Company
Playhouse
By now everyone and their chien has heard about Les Liaisons Dangereuses. It has been cleaning up awards and bouquets ever since it first appeared in London in 1985 and umpteen productions have been performed world wide. Now, with the State Theatre Company’s production we at last have a chance to see what all the fuss has been about.
Playwright Christopher Hampton has taken bold liberties with Choderlos de Ladas’s …
Continue Reading Back to topJuly 01, 1987
Moving but difficult targets
Metamorphosis and Bawky Play, Red Shed Company
ABC, Patch Theatre Company
Soft Targets, Troupe
The Red Shed Company continues to provide distinctive and committed theatre as indicated by their most recent double bill – Bawky Play by David Carlin and an adaptation of an adaptation of Berkoff’s Kafka’s Metamorphosis.
The story of Gregor Samsa, bureaucratic functionary, who wakes up to find he has become a giant insect is more than seventy years old. But …
Continue Reading Back to top