Theatre
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This collection includes reviews of individual theatre performances or groups of performances which are not part of a Festival.
Recent Submissions
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Shift of Wind Needed Before Pinafore Sails. "HMS Pinafore" by Gilbert and Sullivan. Carl Rosa Company. Her Majesty's Theatre [review]
(The Australian, 2004-11-08)The Carl Rosa Opera Company occupied a distinguished part of English operatic history from its establishment in 1873 through to the late 1950s. It presented the first English productions of Carmen, Lohengrin and Aida and ... -
The Power of Two Funny Men. "The Pleasure of Their Company" by Shaun Micallef and Glynn Nicholas. The Arts Theatre [review]
(The Adelaide Review, 2005-04-01)There have been plenty of comedy double acts in recent times - HG and Roy, John Clarke and Bryan Dawe, Mick Molloy and Tony Martin, to name just a few. But, on first glance, Glynn Nicholas and Shaun Micallef seem an unlikely ... -
Victim of Digressions. "Frozen" by Bryony Lavery. State Theatre Company of South Australia. Space Theatre [review]
(The Adelaide Review, 2005-07-22)Whenever we wonder about the nature of human nature we invariably turn to criminal behaviour, especially that of predatory serial killers, for speculation and explanation. Are such crimes, especially against children, proof ... -
A Last Hurrah. "Nixon's Nixon" by Russell Lees. P&S Productions in association with Arts Projects Australia. Dunstan Playhouse [review]
(The Adelaide Review, 2003-03)Playwright Russell Lees is at pains to point out that Nixon’s Nixon is a fiction, a speculation of what might have transpired in a lengthy meeting between the President and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger on the ... -
Repressed Memory. "Back to My Roots and Other Suckers" by Barry Humphries. Her Majesty's Theatre [review]
(The Adelaide Review, 2003-07)Back to the roots for Humphries, and much of his audience, means back to suburban memory- of brand names, street names and the sounds and mnemonic smells of Times Past. These times, when they constituted the Present for ... -
Voices in an Awkward Pitch. "Projections 1" by Peter Finlay, "Blowing It" by Stephen Papps and Stephen Sinclair, and "Festival of One" Bakehouse Theatre. [review]
(The Adelaide Review, 2004-08)The Festival of One monodrama series has been a fixture at the Bakehouse for a number of years now. Previously, it ran in November but artistic director, Peter Green has, this year, divided it into three seasons in May, ... -
Sons of the Father. "The Duck Shooter" by Marty Denniss. Brink Productions and the State Theatre Company South Australia [review]
(The Adelaide Review, 2004-08-15)Brink Productions did a good thing encouraging Marty Denniss to revise for the stage his script of the Australian feature film "Erskineville Kings". Cinema’s gain has also been the theatre’s and the result is "The Duck ... -
A New Director and A New Direction. "Adam Cook, State Theatre Company's Artistic Director for 2005, Removes the Veil".
(The Adelaide Review, 2004-11-12)It is midday on a Friday and the crowd is gathered in the Dunstan Playhouse for the launch of the State Theatre Company’s 2005 season. There’s the usual mix of subscribers, sponsors, arts heavies and media, as well as ... -
Beat the Bourgeoisie. "Drums in the Night" by Bertolt Brecht. Brink Productions and State Theatre Company of South Australia [review]
(The Australian, 2005-04-06)Using a cabaret setting, director Chris Drummond, designer Gaelle Mellis and a fine cast give us essence of Weimar but with a convincingly contemporary style and a text that captures current vernacular without drowning in ... -
A Case of Mistaken Identity. "The Government Inspector" by Nikolai Gogol. State Theatre South Australia [review]
(The Adelaide Review, 2005-03-17)For State Theatre’s contribution to Come Out and as a spritzy opening to the 2005 season, newly arrived Artistic Director Adam Cook has assembled a talented cast to stage an energetic revival of a European classic. ... -
Back From the Dead. "Drums in the Night" by Bertolt Brecht. Brink Productions and State Theatre Company South Australia [review]
(The Adelaide Review, 2005-04-14)"Drums in the Night", written in the early 1920s when the playwright himself was only just out of his teens, has many of the elements of the later, more famous works. Featuring a simple, fable-like plot, satiric comment ... -
Untiring Courage. "Weary" by Alan Hopgood. Dunstan Playhouse [review]
(The Adelaide Review, 2005-04-29)Sir Edward “Weary” Dunlop waited more than forty years before he turned the scattered notes of his wartime diaries into publishable form. Recorded in dreadful circumstances while he was a prisoner of the Japanese, first ... -
Stepping Up at the Bakehouse. "One Small Step" by Heather Nimmo. Bakehouse Theatre [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2005-05-13)"One Small Step" has been developed from "Boots", a short play for workplaces developed for the redoubtable Junction Theatre Company. In its present form it has had seasons in Perth for the Western Australian Theatre Company ... -
A Night of Crime and Punishment. "Shakespeare's Villains" by Steven Berkoff. Festival Theatre [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2005-03-04)In the polite world of English theatre Steven Berkoff has always been the bad boy, and, even at sixty eight, he is still a bit of a lad. We owe much to him - for the turbulent rough magic of "East", for the curdled wit of ... -
Running on Empty. "Sweet Road" by Debra Oswald. State Theatre South Australia and Playbox [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2000-10)Life, as everyone from your aromatherapist to your personal trainer will tell you, is a journey. We are all out there, pounding away on the four lane black top. That is, when we are not cruising the information superhighway ... -
A Play in Inverted Commas. "The Taming of the Shrew" by William Shakespeare. State Theatre South Australia [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2000-12)There is nothing else in all of Shakespeare that has caused the sort of qualms that "The Taming of the Shrew" has over the past twenty years or so. The subduing of the fiery Katherina by her mocking suitor Petruchio and ... -
End of Seasoning. "Salt" by Peta Murray. State Theatre Company [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2002-12)The State Theatre slogan for 2003 promises to spice up our lives. In fact the culinary metaphor already applies. For their final production this year the company has chosen "Salt", a work by Peta Murray about mothers, ... -
The Cost of Living. "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller. State Theatre Company [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2004-09)When Arthur Miller wrote "Death of a Salesman" in a six week rush in the spring of 1948 his ambition was to write a play about the tragic fall of an ordinary man. He called his protagonist ‘Loman’ just to underline the ... -
Combat Zone. "Third World Blues" by David Williamson. State Theatre Company [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2001-03)For an artist to return to a finished work and then revise it, is rarely a simple matter. So when, in 1997, David Williamson went back to his 1972 script "Jugglers Three" and reworked it, he again raised interesting questions ... -
Montana of the Mind. "A Lie of the Mind" by Sam Shepherd. Brink Productions [review]
(The Australian, 2001-11-30)Brink have brought us a strong production -all three hours of it. Shepard’s play is a saga of individuals struggling to understand themselves in the mirror of those they have spent their lives with. They are also searching ...