I could be wrong but I think the only Jonathan Dove opera to have made it to a professional stage so far in Australia is Flight, which I saw in 2006 when the Adelaide Festival presented the Glyndebourne production. The prolific Dove is something of a rarity, being a living opera composer whose more than…
Category: Theatre
About last week … April 16-22
Last week’s theatre was all about men in extremis, or at least it turned out that way for me. Not an uncommon situation in our theatres, you might say, although now there is increasing awareness that we need to see a wider range of experience on Australian stages. (Hello lobby group Women in Theatre and…
Sydney Theatre Company’s Hay Fever
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, April 15. “I never realise how dead I am until I meet people like you,” says the rather correct “diplomatist” Richard Greatham (Alan Dukes) to the chatelaine of the unorthodox country house to which he’s been invited for the weekend. Call it the Bliss factor, a tornado-like life force that…
About last week … April 9-15
It’s 13 years since Li Cunxin published his memoir Mao’s Last Dancer and its appeal hasn’t dimmed. It’s still in print, of course, and there was a condensed version made for young adults and an illustrated children’s book The Peasant Prince. That was also featured in an Adelaide Symphony Orchestra concert in 2009 with excerpts…
About last week … April 2-8
In the week just gone I went again to The Australian Ballet’s Swan Lake, this time to see Lana Jones as O/O. I’ll wait until I’ve seen Natasha Kusch – coming up at the Saturday matinee – before I embark on a full discussion of Stephen Baynes’s production and the key exponents. In the meantime…
About last week … March 18-25
British director Matthew Warchus had two musicals open within about four months of one another. One was Matilda the Musical, the Royal Shakespeare Company production that premiered in Stratford-upon-Avon in November 2010 before opening in the West End in October the following year; and Ghost the Musical, based on the popular 1990 film, which started…
80 Minutes No Interval, Swansong
Old Fitzroy Theatre, March 15 “A SHORT show’s a good show,” critics carol to one another, pleased to discover that what we’re about to see will all be over in 60 minutes, 70 minutes, 80 or perhaps 90, straight through. One hundred minutes is usually as long as it gets without an interval, although at…
Sydney Theatre Awards 2015
AT the Sydney Theatre Awards no one need ever fear a journalist asking them “who are you wearing” or indeed have any need of a stylist. There is no red carpet at the Paddington RSL, there are no TV cameras. The proceedings could be described as low-key, or even a little bit daggy if you…
Theatre artists of the year (and my inaugural Artist of the Year)
One person’s best is another person’s “I can’t believe we saw the same show”. Which if course we never do or can. We each bring to the theatre our history, our personality, our experiences, our experience, our tastes and our bête noirs. So why these lists at year’s end? Well, they serve as reminders of…
Tragedy sped up
Belvoir, September 23 Nikolai Ivanov sits on a sofa looking desolate as the Lebedevs’ party swirls around him. He’s heading towards 40, he has no money, his relations give him grief, he’s given up on his marriage and he’s drawn to a girl half his age. Oh, and his wife is dying and her doctor…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 