OF the more than 200 shows I saw last year, about a third were plays. Dance, opera, musical theatre and cabaret make up the rest. Unfortunately symphonic and chamber music featured very lightly. Can’t do everything, which is why my theatre viewing in Sydney had many gaps, although I don’t believe I missed anything that…
Tag: Toby Schmitz
Tragedy, Tragi-comedy and lots of Sondheim
The Glass Menagerie, Belvoir, September 30 Howie the Rookie, Red Line Productions in association with Strange Duck Productions and Sydney Independent Theatre Company, Old Fitzroy Theatre, October 2 Sondheim on Sondheim, Squabbalogic Independent Music Theatre, Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre, October 3 EAMON Flack’s production of The Glass Menagerie for Belvoir is very beautiful; perhaps too…
2013: a retrospective
Here’s my take on the year’s high points. As many have noted before me, “best” is a useless word when applied to the cornucopia available in the arts. Here are the people and productions that most inspired me. “A SHORT show is a good show,” we all carol (me and my fellow critics) as we…
Goodnight, sweet prince
Hamlet, change of cast, Belvoir, Sydney, November 26 THEATRE critics don’t often revisit a production. They go to the opening, write, and move on. They must. Other plays, other companies relentlessly crowd the diary and then the season is over and the chance disappears. The critic has to make judgments swiftly, and very possibly on…
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,…
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Sydney Theatre, August 10 Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It’s abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we’ll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the…
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Belvoir, Sydney
Belvoir St Theatre, February 27 WHEN theatre practitioners talk about putting Australian voices on stage they tend to be talking about Australian plays and Australian content – what else would they mean? Well, at Sydney’s Belvoir theatre, artistic director Ralph Myers and resident director Simon Stone take it a step further by preferring to use…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 