Sydney Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre, November16 SYDNEY Theatre Company’s Waiting for Godot offers, above all, the grace of tenderness and the gift of generosity. There are few qualities more touching in any circumstances; in Godot they temper and illuminate one of the harshest and most unforgiving dramas of the 20th century. Life is envisioned as…
The Pilates phenomenon
THERE’S more to getting ready for a ballet performance than donning a stunning costume, doing a stage-worthy make-up and rubbing a rabbit’s foot for luck. Before the curtain goes up there will have been countless hours of rehearsal over weeks and months (not to mention the decade or so of training to get to that…
La Sylphide
The Australian Ballet, Sydney Opera House, November 7 WHAT to do about a ballet as dreamily brief as La Sylphide? In the middle of this year West Australian Ballet took the minimalist approach and added nothing to fill out the evening. Over the years the Australian Ballet has taken several paths. In 1996, under Maina…
Bodytorque.Technique
The Australian Ballet, Sydney Theatre, October 31. THIS year they called the annual choreographic workshop Bodytorque.Technique. It would have been rather closer to the mark to call it Bodytorque.Influences. Five of the six new works paid such homage to established choreographers you’d think royalties would be in order. But for all the sense there wasn’t…
The Chocolate Frog and other plays
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,…
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…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 