REVIEW: The Threepenny Opera

The always-vexing question of the ‘right’ way to do a playtext is particularly vexed when it comes to Brecht; to stage Brecht is almost invariably to fail Brecht.

Life… is a Dream.

Seeing a progression in someone’s work the wrong way around is always intriguing for the possibilities it offers for misreading, or overly simplifying. Having seen Daniel Schlusser’s Peer Gynt before Life is a Dream (a remount of which has just closed at The Store Room - but bear with my lateness, for I am working [...]

Three perhaps not-so-obvious points on ‘Pornography’ (the play, not the genre)

I do need to preface this comment by noting I am writing it from behind the opaque screen of a 38°C fever, and that I saw Pornography as the swine flu was comfortably settling in. It was, however, a remarkable theatrical event, for many non-obvious reasons.

1st non-obvious reason: demonstrating that an artists’ festival is not [...]

Seven Jewish Children (1?)

Melbourne has had its reading of Seven Jewish Children, its donation bucket and panel afterwards, and yet I am a little surprised that no follow-up discussion has appeared, not even among the bloggers. I imagine it has something to do with the supreme lack of time we all seem to profess at the moment. I [...]

Semi- and non-reviews: text

I have been in spillover for weeks now. That means: at the end of every day, a little bit of unfinished work spills over into the morning. The accumulating backlog, or just ballast of duties, is, with the end of semester edging closer, just about to become unmanageable. I am toiling on three intellectual (but [...]

RW: The Wonderful World of Dissocia + Metamorphosis

Oh, Sydney. We may all know that Melbourne is the hub of independent theatre in Australia, but Sydney remains the elusive haven of mainstage. It has its fancy-looking Opera House shows, after all, and it has the supposed highlight of domestic mainstream, the Sydney Theatre Company (run by the glitterati Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton; home, until recently, of the one actors’ ensemble in the country; the commissioner of Benedict Andrews; the soothe for the discerning middle-class theatre-goer). It makes big-stage, big-cast, big-ambition work that the parochial Melbourne only dreams about. So why is it, then, that I come back from NSW once again disappointed?

Apocalypse and circular revenge: A View of Concrete & Family Stories

In Melbourne in 2006, Alison Croggon suspected she may not have liked Gareth Ellis's script of A View of Concrete half as much without Lauren Taylor's direction. In Sydney in 2008, I think she got it right. In Zagreb in 2005, I walked out of a derelict factory, seeing a nightmarish production of Family Stories, [...]

Some useful ideas.

Dated in the future, but a little bit older than that, Zadie Smith's exquisite article, Two Paths for a Novel, from the New York Review of Books, could be a very fine read for your week. It is a comparative review of Joseph O'Neill's Netherland and Tom McCarthy's Remainer, and a long essay on the [...]

The Masque of the Red Death

Not entirely successful, The Masque of the Red Death stands unsure between presentation and representation, self-awareness and not, always doing things a tad bit too literally.

Rio Saki & Other Falling Debris; with regret

La Mama and Parnassus’ Den Productions present: Rio Saki & Other Falling Debris. Written by Shaun Charles. Directed by Dave Letch. Performed by Daniel Agapiou, Melanie Berry, Cat Commander, Joshua Hewitt, Gina Morley and Gus Murray. Production designed by Christina Logan-Bell. Lighting designed by Christopher Tollefson. La Mama at the Carlton Courthouse, 349 Drummond [...]