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Well, that was unexpected. Really. I think I was anticipating something sort of esoteric and alien. Something I might feel a bit detached from, a bit inadequate in the face of. But not this. I was pretty confident I could keep up with whatever he was going to make of Hamlet, even though I was a bit worried I’d just be
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Antony Hamilton’s new work is like some frenzied techno party, with fantastical costumes, lasers and colour flashes, dancers forged into fractured robots – it all makes you wonder what they’re on. And it makes the first in this Sydney Dance Company double bill, a revival of Rafael Bonachela’s Frame of Mind, seem almost classical, even lyrical. Composer Julian Hamilton, from The Presets, came to his brother Antony with just a few “acid lines” to choose from, one
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In terms of possibilities, the title One Infinity appears limitless. And in truth, this enigmatic, meditative work is both particular and – well – eternal. The Merlyn at Melbourne’s Malthouse seems transformed. It’s become a vast cathedral lit by massive shafts of light, cutting at the highest points through the darkness – then dissolving into soft, shadowy
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Sydney is currently presenting a study in feminist theatre in two parts. In two theatres. At Belvoir St, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy Of The People, from an all-female creative team, taps into the #MeToo movement through a contemporary rewrite and canny gender swap, turning the whistleblowing protagonist into a target of male
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David Williamson’s latest play is quite a departure for the enduring scribe who’s so often given us comedies about social mores and searing visions of contemporary power struggles. Not to worry – there are still the trademark Williamson barbs and observations about misguided and deluded humans. You just have to take them with a dose
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To contemporise a great classic of the stage is one thing. To turn it into a state-of-the-current-nation play is quite another. Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy Of The People has always been about power, truth and morality. Which is why indolent directors have long reached for it on the shelf in times of heightened anxiety. But
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By Daily Review
Former opera singer, publisher and long time CEO of Opera Australia, Adrian Collette, has been announced the new CEO of the Australia Council, the nation’s peak arts funding body, by the federal Arts Minister Senator Mitch Fifield. Collette replaces current CEO Mr Tony Grybowski whose term winds up on October 23. For about the last five years, Collette has been
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Once again, I’m coming at you LIVE from a shrubbery somewhere in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, which are seeing a lot of after-hours activity this week. In fact, if there’s a hub at this years festival it’s here, where Lexicon now sits cheek-by-jowl with this: Fire Gardens, from Compagnie Carabosse, a French group who’ve been
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Kill everyone over 15 and under 8 and bring the woman to me.’ Turns out there’s not really much to say about Prize Fighter. That it’s an exceptional piece of theatre is probably the least important thing about it. That the story of an ex-child soldier is harrowing, confronting and brutal, should be no surprise. That
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It’s worth reflecting on what Watt is and what Watt is not. Which is not Knott. He is not Knott. He is Watt. Or not. Watt not, possibly; but not Knott. Knott is Knott. Knott is not Watt. Watt is…what? What Watt was not (Knott), to begin with, was a play by Samuel Beckett. Which
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