This week, Back to Back Theatre’s 2012 production Ganesh versus the Third Reich will open at Sydney’s Carriageworks. The show has toured the world, winning awards and laudatory reviews in Montreal, Paris…
Shona Reppe plays a professional scrapologist digging into the mystery of Josephine Bean in this warm show for kids.
Douglas McBride/Adelaide Festival
Meet Dr Patricia Baker; not a medical doctor but a doctor of scrapology, founder of SCRAPS, the Society (for the) Care, Repair (and) Analytical Probing (of) Scrapbooks. She has an alluring range of CSI-like…
An Iliad, currently playing at the Adelaide Festival is an intelligent adaptation of Homer’s classic – and a work of consumate compression.
Joan Marcus/Adelaide Festival
At the heart of the Homer’s Coat production of An Iliad, currently playing at the Adelaide Festival, is that most of Homeric of things, a list. In a narrative compression as consummate as any in the epic…
From Roman Forum to airport lounge, Roman Tragedies connects three Shakespearean tragedies in the one performance.
Tony Lewis/Adelaide Festival
Over six hours, three Shakespearean tragedies – Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra – are connected in an immensely ambitious production, Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s Roman Tragedies. Under Ivo…
This article contains spoilers. John Wells’ film August: Osage County tells the story of a family which has gathered for the funeral of its father. Ostensibly, they are also there to help its ill and drug-addicted…
Should sexuality play a central role in constructing our own identity?
MTC, photo Jeff Busby
British playwright Mike Bartlett’s contemporary comedy of manners Cock opened on the Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) main stage last week. Highly anticipated after winning an Olivier Award with its London…
Meet Davos – your big new friend with questionable intentions.
mike fischer
You meet someone. Someone different. Someone attractive, open, free. Let’s call him Davos. You start seeing a lot of each other, hanging out as a couple. As always when you’re in a relationship, a degree…
The immigrant mask can take many forms.
IDS.photos/Flickr
Harry Ricketts, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Historically, geographically, culturally – there are many points of comparison between Australia and its neighbour to the east, New Zealand. But there are notable differences. This week, The Conversation…
Supposed self-censorship by the Queensland Theatre Company over a joke about Campbell Newman has raised few laughs.
Dave Hunt/AAP
The joke was in, then out, then in again. Over the last week a story reminding us of the delicate politics of arts funded by the government and the need for good governance leaked out of the Queensland…
No substitute for the real thing.
Bryan Chuck Brennan
Seeing the live National Theatre broadcast of Coriolanus brought home once again how we’re all glued to screens now: our eyes rarely far from and seemingly hypnotised by the lure of the light emanating…
The Tampa showdown in 2001 prompted playwrights to tackle the topic of asylum seekers.
AAP Image/Wallenius Wilhelmsen
When, some eight or nine years ago, I began researching the responses of Australian and refugee theatre makers, filmmakers and writers to asylum seeker debates it was very easy to share the hopes for political…
Black Diggers tells the stories of young Indigenous soldiers who fought in the first world war. How did their stories get forgotten?
Jamie Williams/Sydney Festival
In August 2012, I was invited by the Sydney Festival to work with Wesley Enoch, Artistic Director of Queensland Theatre Company, to assist in developing Black Diggers, currently playing as part of the…
Cadavre Exquis takes its cues from the game loved by the Surrealists – also known as the kids’ game “consequences”.
Mette van der Sijs/Sydney Festival
The rules of Cadavre Exquis are basic. Four directors, each responsible for 15 minutes of material. Each brings one actor. This is the basis of Cadavre Exquis, a performance staged at Sydney’s Carriageworks…
Chi Udaka isn’t a “fusion” show, it’s a performance in which intercultural exchange flourishes.
Filigree Films
There is speculation that the taiko drum was first used by soldiers in battle. At its best, Chi Udaka, currently playing at the Seymour Centre as part of the Sydney Festival, recalls the ritualised diffusing…
Pan Pan Theatre Company’s production of All That Fall immerses the audience in Samuel Beckett’s play.
Ros Kavanagh/Sydney Festival
In the program notes to Pan Pan Theatre’s outstanding production of All That Fall at the Sydney Festival, critic Nicholas Johnson underlines Samuel Beckett’s well known opposition to having All That Fall…
Halina Rejin is performing Jean Cocteau’s La Voix Humaine at Carriageworks as part of the Sydney Festival.
Sydney Festival/Prudence Upton
An unnamed woman alone in an apartment conducts an increasingly panicked conversation on the telephone with the man she loves, but who has abandoned her for another. Her assumed fortitude gradually crumbles…
Super Discount reminds us theatre should seek to do more than merely entertain.
Jeff Busby
Super Discount – currently playing at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre – is the latest work by Geelong-based Back to Back Theatre company. The project launched to great critical acclaim at the Sydney Theatre…
Andrew Upton’s production of Waiting for Godot breathes new life into the play.
Sydney Theatre Company/Lisa Tomasetti
On Saturday night, Andrew Upton’s production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot opened at the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) – without provoking the executors of the Irish playwright’s estate to anger…
Courageous dissent? “The MTC is patting itself on the back for staging The Heretic. But the MTC is not being bold … it is being cowardly.”
Flickr/Carlton Browne
Who would have thought the Melbourne Theatre Company would get into bed with Andrew Bolt? The MTC’s new play The Heretic, which premieres on 17 May, tells the story of climate scientist Dr Diane Cassell…