Bell Shakespeare, Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, March 5. “A SAD tale’s best for winter. I have one of sprites and goblins,” says the boy Mamillius, through whose eyes John Bell filters Shakespeare’s late, great fable. Mamillius’s bedroom, bathed in a fairy-world pastel light and hung with stars, is where everything will happen, a reflection of…
Cojocaru and Kobborg
WHEN Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg join The Australian Ballet in Sydney for two performances of Manon in April it will be their first appearance with an Australian company, but their second time in Australia together and Cojocaru’s third visit. She danced in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Hamburg Ballet in Brisbane in 2012. In…
Imperial Suite
The Australian Ballet, Brisbane, February 26 THE men of The Australian Ballet get an occasional look-in but the double bill Imperial Suite is really all about the women. In Serge Lifar’s Suite en blanc there is a flurry of white tutus and only one male dance of any substance. In George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial a…
Noises Off
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, February 27 MICHAEL Frayn’s Noises Off is not only exceptionally funny, but also – as Jonathan Biggins writes in his director’s note – has the darkest of undercurrents. A group of actors, some of them not entirely in their prime, have been cast in a production of a farce called…
Proof; Boys Like Me
Proof, Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, February 25 (matinee) Boys Like Me, Courtney Act, Sydney Theatre, February 25 DAVID Auburn’s Proof had a Sydney Theatre Company season in 2003 with George Ogilvie directing Jacqueline McKenzie and Barry Otto as the father and daughter maths whizzes who share a genius for numbers and potentially a similar fate. The…
Manon
The Australian Ballet, Brisbane, February 21 MANON, which premiered 40 years ago next month (March 7, 1974), is in an exclusive club, the handful of full-length 20th century ballets that have insinuated themselves firmly into the repertoire. The Australian Ballet doesn’t exactly have it on high rotation but, including this year, Manon has shown up…
Sweet Charity
Hayes Theatre Co, Sydney, February 13 HAYES Theatre Co came into being when Darlinghurst Theatre Company vacated its tiny 19 Greenknowe Ave premises in Potts Point, having become the resident company at the spiffy new Eternity Playhouse. Sydney City Council, which spent about $8 million on the transformation of the former Baptist church into a…
The critics decide …
THE February/March issue of Dance Australia has the magazine’s annual survey of dance during the past year. It takes the temperature nationally by asking critics – 18 this year, of which I am one – to name their best, worst and most promising people and events. It’s always a good read, highlighting artists and events…
Theatre, dance and opera in New York
I AM currently in New York seeing a LOT of shows. My diary page will be updated regularly. Back mid-February.
Dance at the Sydney Festival
Am I, Shaun Parker & Company, January 9; Dido & Aeneas, Sasha Waltz & Guests, January 16; Gudirr Gudirr, Marrugeku, January 17; Forklift, KAGE, January 18 THE Sydney Festival’s dance program was relatively low-key but had an interesting range, from the large-scale centrepiece Dido & Aeneas from Sasha Waltz & Guests to the intimacy and…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 