True West
by Sam Shepard
Flying Penguin Productions
The Studio, Holden Street Theatres, Hindmarsh, Adelaide.
May 2 . Tickets $18 – $28.
Bookings BASS 131 246 or Venuetix 8255 8888
Until May 16.

Increasingly, it seems, professional theatre in Adelaide is looking to the efforts of dedicated individuals. With only the flagship State Theatre Company and a small and under-resourced scattering of second-tier outfits, the city has always depended on the kindness of free-lances. Significant among them has been David …

Assassins

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by John Weidman

Flying Penguin Productions

and Adelaide Festival Centre iNspace Program

The Space, Adelaide Festival Centre, South Australia

December 7-15, 2007.

Directed by David Mealor

Music Director Matthew Carey

There have been four Australian productions of Assassins since it first opened Off-Broadway in 1990 and was remounted in London in 1992. And, of those, only two have been professional productions – the Melbourne Theatre Company version in 1995 and this, most …

2008

The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy

Written by Finegan Kruckemeyer, conceived by Andy Packer

Slingsby Productions

The Space, Adelaide Festival Centre

January 24.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The summer season of young people’s theatre at the Festival Centre has provided a fine opportunity for Slingsby Productions to show their wares. Artistic Director Andy Packer sees his company’s brief as providing “emotionally complex and original stories” with high production values. He refers to Slingsby’s work as “theatrickery” – which is an …

2007

Dogfall

By Caleb Lewis

TheimaGen

The Bakehouse

Until  November 17

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

We talk about it raining cats and dogs – and lately we wish it would more. But in Dogfall, an intriguing new work presented at The Bakehouse by TheimaGen, dramatist Caleb Lewis has taken the image to a disturbing other level. In this ambitious, epic play which begins at The Somme and continues to the present post 9/11 geo-political mayhem, Lewis examines the debates, …

2007

The Homecoming

by Harold Pinter

Floogle

Holden Street Theatres

Directors’ Choice 2007

October 3. Until October 20.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

They have been called comedies of menace and the term is apt. There is something claustrophobic about the settings of Harold Pinter’s domestic dramas, whether it is the crummy Brighton boarding digs of The Birthday Party, the derelict house in The Caretaker or the dingy North London location of The Homecoming. Each is a closed little …

2007

Theatre

Adelaide

Love

By Patricia Cornelius

Vitalstatistix

The Bakehouse Theatre,

255 Angas Street, Adelaide.

August 22. Until September 1.

Tickets $15 – $25.  Bookings Ph.8447 6211

“Love is a given”, observes writer Patricia Cornelius. ”We all believe we will feel it one day. Most of the time it is represented in a rather crass and ludicrous package but we buy the package anyway.” In the opening scene of her 2003 play Love, two young women, Tanya and Annie, …

2007

The Birthday Party

by Harold Pinter

Flying Penguin Productions

Queen’s Theatre

May 16.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

A room is never a safe place with Harold Pinter. Once inside, you never know what confrontation might occur. But then again, there is also what might be waiting outside – when someone inevitably knocks at the door.  Written in 1958,The Birthday Party celebrates its fiftieth next year and David Mealor’s brisk and engaging production at the Queens Theatre shows this …

2007

Pigs, Bears and Billy Goats Gruff

Patch Theatre Company

Dunstan Playhouse

Adelaide Festival Centre

12 January.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

You could be forgiven for thinking that the hottest ticket in Adelaide in January is a show about homicidal wolves, goat-stalking trolls and delinquent girls purloining porridge from unsuspecting families of bears. The foyer of the Dunstan Playhouse is buzzing with kids, the auditorium by curtain time is full. Six shows have quickly sold out with no seats to …

2006

Bash

by Neil Labute

Directors’ Choice Season

Holden Street Theatres

Until 16 September.

Murray Bramwell

American playwright Neil Labute has called them latterday plays, but the characters in Bash, his triple bill of one-act pieces, are anything but latter day saints. Raised in Utah as a Mormon himself, Labute draws on these experiences to represent the everyday quality of terrible actions. These people are presented, not as members of a cult, but ordinary, well-respected God-fearing citizens – even …

2006

Mr Bailey’s Minder

By Debra Oswald

Directors’ Choice Season

Holden Street Theatres

The Studio

Until 10 June.

Murray Bramwell

Leo Bailey –  the chaotic, alcoholic, undeniably gifted, painter at the centre of Debra Oswald’s play – is an identikit of any number of Aussie painters of the past thirty years. The blokes, that is, who lived large, selfish, womanizing lives, squandered their money and fame, and found themselves with few friends to speak of, and even fewer family members …