1991

Circus Oz

Bonython Park, December, 1990.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

For twelve years Circus Oz have been running rings around everybody else’s idea of big tent entertainment. From their beginnings in New Circus and Soapbox circus they have brought together theatre and  rock and roll and created not just a hybrid but a new genus. While retaining a healthy regard for traditional circuit outfits such as Bullens, Ashtons and Circus Royale, Circus Oz also made big changes. For a …

1990

Mango Season

by Michael Doneman

Directed by Angela Chaplin

Design : Kathryn Sproul

Choreography : Belinda Saltmarsh

Cast: Nick Hope, Claire Jones,

Kate Roberts, Peter Wood plus

Unley Youth Theatre – Roz Evans, Arabella Gryst, Emma Sheldon, Freya Newton, Alison Walsh, Alex Witham, Sara Oliver, Hayley Smith, Diarmid Lee, Sarah Marr, Ben Kempster.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Mango Season is the fruit of a Creative Development Project formed between Michael and Ludmila Doneman’s Brisbane based Contact company, Darwin’s Corrugated …

1990

Prophets and Loss

Produced and Directed by Gabrielle Kelly

and Nick Hart-Williams

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Global warming is the kind of subject likely to put a chill around the heart. It is perhaps for that reason that apart from specifically ordained days of lamentation or the usually unhelpful raiment tearing that we find on TV, the environment as a subject does not rate attention. We get the Nostradamus doomwatch stuff or specific details of spills and toxic waste …

1990

No Sugar

by Jack Davis

Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney and

Western Australian Theatre Company

Tandanya Theatre, October 1990.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

No Sugar is Jack Davis’ third play. After Kullark in 1978 and The Dreamers four years later, he was commissioned by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust in 1984 to write two plays. That must be some of the best grant money ever spent. The results were Honey Spot, a splendid play for young people which  premiered …

1990

Murray Bramwell talks with playwright Michael Doneman about  his new work for the Magpie Company – Mango Season, which opens at the Odeon Theatre next week.

Michael Doneman describes himself as a recidivist Queenslander. After ten years working in theatre in Sydney he returned to his Brisbane base firstly to teach and then more recently, to establish Contact, a theatre for young people.

Over the past year Doneman, in cahoots with Darwin’s Corrugated Iron Company, the Two to Five …

1990

Capricornia

by Xavier Herbert

Adapted for the stage by Louis Nowra

State Theatre Company

Playhouse, September, 1990

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

In his 1938 saga, Xavier Herbert used Capricornia as the name for Australia’s Top End. But it is not just a fictional geography , it is also a mythic one. In a profusion of storylines the novel tells how the half-caste Nawnim/ Norman Shillingsworth seeks identity not in two worlds but in three. On the brink of Asia, …

1990

Murray Bramwell

Frames, the Media Resource Centre’s Festival of Film and Video, opens on September 7 and runs for the week through to September 14. Screenings wil be held at Hindley Cinema 3 and the Lion Theatre on North Terrace.

With 130 films programmed in just seven days it promises to be not so much a festival as a binge not only for film specialists but for innocent bystanders as well. Frames consists of a selection of international titles, …

1989

Lost Weekend

By John Romeril

State Theatre Company

Space, August, 1989.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

John Romeril has been writing for the theatre for more than twenty years. Beginning with the APG at the Pram Factory in Melbourne he was central to their importance and success with  a new Australian drama which, to coin a furphy, was temper socialist,bias offensively Carlton. During that time and since Romeril has cranked out a lot of work, of which, Mrs Thally F …

1989

Lost Weekend by John Romeril

State Theatre Company

The Space, Adelaide.

August, 1989.

A new work by John Romeril is always worth a look  and his latest for South Australia’s State Theatre Company is no exception. Lost Weekend is a quirky piece though, and neither its co-directors John Gaden and Ian Watson nor some of the performers seem to have quite got its measure. Even Romeril doesn’t seem to have decided how his ingredients should finally shake down. Perhaps …