reviews – Page 5 – Greenroom

24 August, 20135 May, 2014

Review: Tequila Mockingbird – shake & stir theatre company and QPAC at Cremorne Theatre, QPAC

Photo credit: Dylan Evans

We’ve written before about the work produced by the people involved with shake & stir theatre company, surely one of the most impressive and successful arts companies currently in operation in Queensland and, indeed, around Australia. (Type ‘shake and stir’ into the Search box to see what we’ve had to say over the years.)

Like many, I suspect, I had assumed we’d see the company’s signature physical story-telling at work on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee in much the same way they’d crafted George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, although the poster image of a very sultry Nelle Lee had me puzzled. Tequila Mockingbird breaks some exciting new ground for shake & stir who have labelled this work, ‘a new Australian play created by shake & stir theatre co,’ and that it certainly is folks. Continue reading “Review: Tequila Mockingbird – shake & stir theatre company and QPAC at Cremorne Theatre, QPAC”

20 August, 20135 May, 2014

Review: Other Desert Cities – Queensland Theatre Company at QPAC Playhouse

Image: Rebecca Davis, Robert Coleby, Janet Andrewartha

As much as I love the vivid experimentation – the sheer theatricalism – of some of the recent plays I’ve seen on Brisbane stages, I must confess to being a sucker for an unadorned production of a good piece of American realism. QTC’s latest offering is Jon Robin Baitz‘s Other Desert Cities, a 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony award-winner after its transfer from an off-Broadway start in 2011.

Mr Baitz’s play is finely wrought; the threads he spins in act one are woven tightly in act two and deliver some surprises of their own – a nice touch in a tale about family secrets and lies – a recurring motif in modern American drama. The coda at the play’s end is a little overly sentimental for my taste but probably essential given the narrative set up that’s gone before. The author creates his plot with great characters, by the way. The five roles are juicy, naturalistic and beg for bravura turns coupled with the finesse of ensemble playing.

Other Desert Cities is classically old-fashioned in so many ways; it even sticks to the unities for heaven’s sake! In this co-production with Black Swan State Theatre Company and QTC, director Kate Cherry casts well and delivers a finely-observed, well-orchestrated, conservative production true to the play’s aesthetic values. Continue reading “Review: Other Desert Cities – Queensland Theatre Company at QPAC Playhouse”

11 August, 20135 May, 2014

Review: The Glass Menagerie – La Boite Theatre Company at The Roundhouse

Image: Kathryn Marquet and Julian Curtis | Photography: Dylan Evans

We believe in theatre not just plays. (La Boite: About Us – programme THE GLASS MENAGERIE)

So it comes as no surprise that David Berthold‘s production of Tennessee Williams‘ classic play THE GLASS MENAGERIE (1944) is nothing if not theatrical. Perhaps only radio drama can do it better than the stage – you know, the old line about the pictures in radio being better – but this production takes Williams’ poetic play about memory, loss, and especially illusion and recontextualises it beautifully to give us a boldly fresh take on an old classic. Continue reading “Review: The Glass Menagerie – La Boite Theatre Company at The Roundhouse”

10 August, 20135 May, 2014

Asides: On Writers and Writing and Sanctuaries for Ideas

When I was in year seven, I went to the Brisbane Writers Festival to meet John Marsden. I had never heard of a writers’ festival before, but I was instantly bewitched. It was its own perfect type of theatre. The bounds between audience and artist are a pre-packaged intimacy, having already spent hours together alone, with the writer whispering to the reader in their own private tongue. It’s a special, introverted community, a sanctuary for intellectualism and ideas.

As you may be able to tell, I was rather taken with it all.

Many years on, I’m working behind the scenes, as BWF’s Associate Producer. This means I’m part of the programming team, producing hundreds of events that happen in the hot spot (the 4^th to the 8^th of September), and all year round.

I’m one of dozens of cultural artists who are in a gap. My background is in playwrighting. I’ve grown up from ‘emerging’ and am some way from ‘full-time established’ and am in the ‘weird in-betweeny bit’ (some industry jargon for you there). Many artists venture into a programming or cultural producer role during this time. It’s rich with its own rewards. Continue reading “Asides: On Writers and Writing and Sanctuaries for Ideas”

5 August, 20135 May, 2014

Review: Blood Brothers – Harvest Rain Theatre Company at Cremorne Theatre, QPAC

Image: Photography by Trent Rouillon

Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers (1983) is supposedly based on Alexandre Dumas’ novella, The Corsican Brothers (1844). Each tells the tale of babies separated at birth; each spans decades, and there is love, betrayal, death – Blood Brothers does seem to have Dumas’ stamp of high drama – but, dig a little deeper into Russell’s own life, and you’ll find the seed of Blood Brothers was planted in his own childhood.

When the Olivier Award winning West End production of Blood Brothers closed in 2012, after 24 years, Mr. Russell gave a rare interview which shines some light on the matter. “I am very interested in nature versus nurture. When I look at myself or catch sight of a gesture I make and see my father … I also know I might have drunk myself to death at 30. Luckily, I was saved by my in-laws, who nurtured me.” He also speaks at length about the lack of trust he felt for his father, and his belief that the extensive amount of time spent with his mother, grandmother and aunts growing up enabled him to write convincing female characters. Continue reading “Review: Blood Brothers – Harvest Rain Theatre Company at Cremorne Theatre, QPAC”