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Showing posts with label New Theatre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Theatre. Show all posts

Sunday 14 July 2013

Top Girls - Review



Top Girls by Carly Churchill is playing at the New Theatre. You won't often see a play like this. Top Girls has an all female cast. It is in three Acts, the first of which is very different from the other two.  It is almost like watching several different plays with a common theme.  Though there is one linking character - Marlene played by Julia Billington.
Act One is set in a restaurant and Marlene is holding a dinner party of remarkable woman from History.  Isabella Bird (Cheryl Ward) a Yorkshire lass born in 1831, between the ages of forty to seventy she travelled extensively throughout America. She spends most of the dinner self absorbed in her travels and family misgivings. Lady Nijo (Bishanyia Vincent) was an Emperor's courtesan and later a Buddhist nun who travelled on foot through Japan for twenty years.  She tells how she was banished from the court and how her children were taken from her. Dull Gret (Claudia Barrie) brings much of the humour to this first act. She is the subject of the Brueghel painting Dulle Griet, in which a woman in an apron and armour leads a crowd of women charging through hell and fighting devils.  Pope Joan (Sarah Aubrey) an Englishwoman who disguised as a man is thought to have been made Pope 854 - 856. She tells her tale and how she is discovered. Patient Griselda (Ainslie McGlynn) is the obedient wife whose story is told in "The Clerk's Tale" of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  All these woman have interesting stories, the only sad part is that little has changed for women particularly in some countries. 
Act Two and Three you learn more about Marlene's life and family. Scene One in Act two is set in the Garden, Claudia Barrie plays Angie and Maeve MacGregor plays her best friend Kit. This has to be one of my favourite scenes, it is beautifully written and the two actresses performance was faultless.  All the actresses were amazing. Sarah also played Mrs Kidd which was also, an outstanding performance. 
This whole production was very entertaining. It is a difficult one to stage with a limited budget, you have the restaurant, the garden, an open plan office and the inside of a house. The backdrop remained the same throughout. This is the only thing I would change, plain black curtains or maybe even the use of technology to project the different scenes might have been better. 
This is one of those plays that will stay with me for sometime.
There are plenty of remarkable woman in the world today, and I expect everyone will know a few.
Go and see Top Girls at the New Theatre. It is playing now until 3 August.

Sunday 28 April 2013

The Ham Funeral - Review


The Ham Funeral by Patrick White is playing at the New Theatre.  It was written in 1947 but it could have been written yesterday.  Patrick receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973 and has written several plays and novels.
The play centres around its characters and location rather than plot. It is set in a seedy boarding house in London. A young naive poet (Rob Baird) lives there, who is trying to find the meaning of life. Mrs Lusty (Lucy Miller) the landlady tries, though not very hard, to seduce him. But tragedy strikes as Mr Lusty (Zac McKay) dies on the kitchen floor, hence the Ham Funeral.  The whole play is slightly surreal and even reminded me of the Addams Family. Patrick in his earlier works was greatly influenced by DH Lawrence and Thomas Hardy which explains the slightly bizarre moments and long soliloquies. I think most people enjoyed the scene with the two ladies of the night (Brielle Flynn and Karina Sindicich), their costumes were very good you could feel the grime and dirt. The play does contain quite a bit of humour, some audience members did find it more amusing than others!
The production and set design was very good, it was fairly simply design but very effective.  The use of red curtaining helped set the scene too.  Lucy was very strong as Mrs Lusty which helped keep the play moving and entertaining.
It is a peculiarly play, and it won't be to every ones taste, personally I rather liked the intrigue and idea that you can never be too sure what goes on behind closed doors.

The Ham Funeral plays until 25 May at the New Theatre - www.newtheatre.org.au

Photograph © Bob Seary

Friday 22 March 2013

The Pillowman - Review


Reviewed by Regina Su
Last night, I walked into the New Theatre at Newtown to see The Pillowman with no expectations. This is not because I expected nothing, but more so because I read the blurb of this play and it mentioned a blurred reality between a writer's fiction and some child murders. A promotional pamphlet told me it was a twisted psychological piece and with the playwright being Martin McDonagh, I didn't suspect any less.

May I say, the play did not disappoint. It delivered exactly what the synopsis covers, and more. Only in this sense is the plot predictable. There's a writer and he writes short stories, short murders. A series of killing have occured, in the manner of his short stories, so what's happened?

There are so many dark twists and turns and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterwards, I thought to myself, two and a half hours of The Pillowman is a fair weight of psychological thrilling to stomach, but in hindsight, the play delved into each character's back story and motive, so there were no stones left unturned. I also reflected that perhaps the tone of the play had too many deep monologues that seemed to be undercut by a snide comment of black humour and at the time I was worried I wouldn't be given enough time to be able to sympathise with the characters in their moment of deep introspection. Again, hindsight worked wonders as I saw the power of the actors carry such a macabre topic with grace and sophistication- black humour and subtle social commentary are the only ways to hold an audience for that long on the topic of child-murders. Even Shakespeare knew the power, nay the necessity of comic relief. In that respect, I really admire the production team and actors for the delicate way in which they handled this play.

The was an overwhemling response of audience positivity and this was a testament to the power of storytelling, especially at interval when I sat and tried to figure out the direction of the play. When I figured it out, I was so excited, I had a moment of Wow and this realisation really shows how much, as an audience member, I had invested in this play and the fact that there this level of audience engagement means the production did something. If you opened yourself up to the limits of the stage, and allowed yourself to be swept along, the play was 3 hours of blissful oblivion. The use of sounding and stageplay were subtle and aided the play so perfectly, truly a professional job.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend all to see it before it ends on the 13th of April.

For more information, please visit http://www.newtheatre.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=132&Itemid=158

Saturday 9 February 2013

MilkMilkLemonade - Review




Written by Joshua Conkel, Directed by Melita Rowston
The New Theatre – 542 King St Newtown
From 5th February to 2nd March
Reviewed by Lana Hilton

Hilarious. Thought-provoking. Talking animals.

MilkMilkLemonade is not – despite its name referring to a dirty children’s rhyme – a play suitable for children. Although it is set on a farmyard, focuses on the lives of two 11-year old boys and one of the main characters is a talking chicken in a Brooklyn/American accent, the themes covered are definitely not for the young and innocent.

Emory is an effeminate 5th grader whose dream is to win the singing and dancing competition ‘Reach for the Stars’. He knows he is different from other boys his age and doesn’t need his chain-smoking, cancer-riddled Nanna pointing it out every chance she gets. He knows that playing with a Barbie named Starlene and having deep and meaningful conversations with a fat chicken named Linda probably isn’t normal. But the thing about Emory is that he doesn’t care.

Playwright Joshua Conkel has combined child-like imagination and fantasy with the struggles of identity and sexuality. When scenes of verbal and physical abuse become too much to bear there is a talking chicken, a talking spider,musical outbursts and a parasitic evil twin to lighten the mood.

All five actors in this play deserve special mention. Their commitment to accents, line-dancing, singing, intimate moments and portraying important themes in ridiculous situations is what makes this play enjoyable. The emcee/chicken translator/creepy spider/human embodiment of Starlene/evil parasitic twin known as ‘Lady in a Leotard’ played by Leah Donovan, is everybody’s favourite. What a brilliant and unusual character to play and Leah nails it. Of course Mark Dessaix (Emory), Kieran Foster (Elliot), Pete Nettell (Nanna) and Sarah Easterman (Linda the Chicken) make you feel as if you have dropped down the rabbit hole and are playing alongside them. You love the whole crazy family.

The cast and writing draws you in and makes you feel that although you are facing serious concepts and are sometimes put-off by what the children get up to, you are vastly entertained while you comprehend it all. While I am still a bit bewildered by the chicken’s role in the story of a child growing up gay in Middle America, I am recommending this play to everyone.
 
Challenge yourself and your views by using your imagination and taking a trip back to your childhood…what did you want to be when you were young?

Tuesday 4 December 2012

New Theatre’s Season 2013



New Theatre launched their season for next year, announcing the productions that will make up the exciting program and introducing the directors who will be taking Sydney audiences on a fabulous theatrical journey.
For Season 2013, they have put together a diverse program of nine plays that includes revivals of two ground-breaking modern classics, from 1960s Australia and 1980s England, and four Australian premieres.
Not by design, but an outcome of which they’re really proud, four of the plays are written by women, and no less than seven will be directed by women!
To direct, they are delighted to welcome back Luke Rogers (Waiting for Godot), who has just graduated from the NIDA Directors Course.  He will be joined by fellow NIDA graduates Harriet Gillies, Felicity Nicol, Phillip Rouse, and Melita Rowston, making a welcome return to directing but perhaps best known as a playwright (Crushed).   Four of New Theatre’s most experienced directors:  Louise Fischer (Vernon God Little), Helen Tonkin (Equus), Alice Livingstone (The Weir) and Rosane McNamara (Entertaining Mr Sloane), round out the directing roster.


Summer Holiday Family Entertainment
THE SMALL POPPIES
By David Holman
Directed by Felicity Nicol
9 – 26 January

Australian Premiere, in association with the Sydney Mardi Gras
MILKMILKLEMONADE
By Joshua Conkel
Directed by Melita Rowston
5 February – 2 March
 
THE PILLOWMAN
By Martin McDonagh
Directed by Luke Rogers
12 March – 13 April

THE HAM FUNERAL
By Patrick White
Directed by Phillip Rouse
23 April – 25 May
 
Australian Premiere
ENRON
By Lucy Prebble
Directed by Louise Fischer
4 - 29 June
 
TOP GIRLS
By Caryl Churchill
Directed by Alice Livingstone
9 July – 3 August
 
Australian Premiere
JERUSALEM
By Jez Butterworth
Directed by Helen Tonkin
13 August – 14 September
 
HUMBLE BOY
By Charlotte Jones
Directed by Rosane McNamara
8 October – 2 November

Australian Premiere
DYING FOR IT
By Moira Buffini
Freely adapted from Nicholas Erdman’s The Suicide
Directed by Harriet Gillies
19 November – 21 December