The Floating World, Griffin, Sydney, October 9; Hamlet, Belvoir, Sydney, October 16; The Chocolate Frog, Parramatta Correctional Centre, October 22; Minsk 2011: A Reply to Kathy Acker, Melbourne Festival, October 25 Hamlet: Denmark is a prison Rosencrantz: Then is the world one Hamlet: A goodly one; in which there are many confines wards and dungeons,…
Month: October 2013
Room of Regret, Life and Times: Episodes 1-4
Room of Regret, Theatre Works, St Kilda, October 27 Life and Times: Episodes 1-4, Melbourne Arts Centre, October 26 THE Rabble’s Room of Regret could have been expressly ordered by the Melbourne Festival to illustrate the essential unknowability of the critical process. As part of the festival’s investigation into the art of the critic I…
Grease, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Grease, Lyric Theatre, Sydney, October 23 (matinee) Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Theatre Royal, Sydney, October 23 THE simultaneous arrival in Sydney of Grease and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels isn’t the greatest news. The Sydney appetite for musicals doesn’t appear to be particularly buoyant at this moment so it’s rather bad luck to have both shows in town…
Criticism in the digital age
Having been asked to take part in a forum on criticism in the digital age for the Melbourne Festival – it was held at the Wheeler Centre for books, writing and ideas – I wrote an opinion piece for The Australian on the subject. It happens to be exactly a year since I retired after…
Shaping an Australian ballet company
WHEN the ebullient Ivan Cavallari accepted an artistic directorship in France, West Australian Ballet’s board knew exactly what it wanted in his replacement. Starting in 2007, Cavallari and WAB general manager Steven Roth had successfully pushed for more funding, an increase in permanent dancer numbers from 19 to 32 and had secured splendid new headquarters….
Sun
Hofesh Shechter Company, Melbourne Festival, October 13. SUN finds Hofesh Shechter in a jocund mood, or what passes for it. The title implies warmth and light. Facsimile sheep wander and gambol. Every now and again a woman leaps up from the front row of the auditorium to utter a brief, piercing scream and then sits…
A Murder is Announced
Sydney Theatre, October 9 THERE was a time when I thought Agatha Christie the last word in reading entertainment. I devoured her books hungrily, and decided that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was about the cleverest thing written. I still think it’s pretty nifty actually, and it was rather influential in the crime genre, a…
Super Discount
Back to Back Theatre, Wharf 1, Sydney Theatre Company, October 1 WHEN the members of Back to Back argue about who has the right to play certain characters, they enter one of the continuing and often fraught discussions in theatre. Blackface has long been consigned to the dustbin of history but are there enough roles…
Nutcracker, Russian National Ballet Theatre
Civic Theatre, Newcastle, October 2 ON Wednesday night I went to Newcastle for a family outing to the ballet, the Russian National Ballet Theatre’s Nutcracker, which is touring in repertory with – no surprises here – Swan Lake. Newcastle’s lovely Civic Theatre wasn’t exactly overflowing with eager ballet fans, despite the city being famed for…
The Rite of Spring/Petrushka
Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, Brisbane Festival, September 26. MICHAEL Keegan-Dolan’s Rite of Spring does honour to the most unsettling dance score in history. The Fabulous Beast founder and choreographer doesn’t shrink from nature at its most primaI, red in tooth and claw, but understands that while a community can be full of darkness and harm,…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 