Much Ado About Nothing
by William Shakespeare
State Theatre Company.
The Playhouse

In setting events in the Messina of 1890, directors John Gaden and Gale Edwards have made their production of Much Ado About Nothing both impetuously Sicilian and priggishly Victorian; thus recognising the volatility and harshness of Shakespeare’s comedy.

The play is a tangle of slander, spite and cant as Hero, daughter of Leonato, is dishonoured by accusations of infidelity and then spurned in high dudgeon by her gullible …

With so many of Adelaide’s theatre companies resting between engagements my bulletin this time is focused less on what is past or passing and more on what is to come – in particular, for the State Theatre Company in 1987.

When I interviewed John Gaden for last month’s CentreStage Australia, the 1987 season was still under embargo and thus the State secrets enthusiastically outlined by Gaden had to stay under the hat.

By the time this goes to press, …

Benefactors
By Michael Frayn
State Theatre Company, Playhouse.

Michael Frayns play, Benefactors appeared on the State Theatre Company performance list after Nick Enright and Alan John’s show Strange Harvest fell to the scythe of economics a few months back. The new Australian content in State’s programme dropped somewhat when John Romeril’s Jonah Jones went overboard and then Strange Harvest got the rotary heave ho as well, but indications are that State will redress the balance in 1987.

Benefactors, then, …

Pravda
State Theatre Company
The Playhouse

As players of Trivial Pursuit well know, Pravda means truth, and in Howard Brenton and David Hare’s play the State Theatre Company reminds us that the Western press is as unlikely as any other to give us the whole Pravda and nothing but the pravda on the things that matter most.

Both Brenton and Hare have enjoyed success as playwrights over the past fifteen years or so and have collaborated previously on a play …