MACHINAL

November 27th 2013 10:30 am | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

MACHINAL, Sydney Theatre Company in Wharf 2, November 21-7 December 7, 2013. Photography by Brett Boardman; above: Ivan Donato, Harriet Dyer, Katie McDonald and Terry Serio; right: Harriet Dyer and Brandon Burke.

It's hard to believe that Machinal was written and first staged in 1928, but director Imara Savage has trimmed the sprawling original to 21st century time tastes and one mesmerising act and it's as fresh and irrelevant as this morning. While seen to be part of American Expressionist theatre, Machinal, by Sophie Treadwell, is unique in telling its story from the female perspective. In so doing it foreshadows many of the concerns of 1960s-70s feminism and also, in its depiction of a dehumanised society, George Orwell's 1984. And also, in this stark, monochromatic setting, Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

Treadwell - a journalist as well as prolific playwright - loosely based Machinal on the true story of Ruth Snyder, an American housewife whose various bungled attempts to murder her husband finally succeeded with the connivance of her married lover, corset salesman Judd Gray. Neither was any good at murder or keeping their stories straight, however, and the police soon arrested both. At the age of 33 she was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison in January 1928, an event that was secretly photographed and notoriously published next day in the New York Daily News.

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SUMMERTIME IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

November 23rd 2013 1:59 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

SUMMERTIME IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN, Sisters Grimm and Griffin Independent at the SBW Stables Theatre, 20 November-14 December 2013. Photography by Marg Horwell: above - Agent Cleave and Bessie Holland; right - Agent Cleave.

Being based in Melbourne is surely not the reason why Declan Greene and Ash Flanders have an apparently natural affinity with Southern Gothic, particularly its brooding melodrama, innate theatricality and camp irony. Whatever, after entertaining Sydney with Little Mercy, they - the Sisters Grimm - have now brought their latest hit show north. Summertime in the Garden of Eden is a heady celebration of the Deep South's dark history, elongated vowels and extravagantly enhanced syllables; at once tragic and comic, earnest and absurd, beautiful and grotesque, magnolia-scented and shudderingly rotten. In essence: it's irresistible. So, welcome to their world and the thought that maybe, somehow you've been here before...

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WAITING FOR GODOT

November 17th 2013 3:13 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

WAITING FOR GODOT, Sydney Theatre Company at the Sydney Theatre, 12 November-21 December 2013. Photography by Lisa Tomasetti: Hugo Weaving, Luke Mullins, Richard Roxburgh and Philip Quast; right: Richard Roxburgh and Hugo Weaving.

It was a thrilling moment when it was announced last year that Richard Roxburgh and Hugo Weaving would be reunited on the Sydney Theatre stage in Waiting For Godot. These two are not only major screen stars, but they're also wonderful stage actors - not a common combination. But I had misgivings, because the director was to be the man whose idea it had been to cast the two: Tamas Ascher. 

Ascher's 2012 production for STC of Uncle Vanya was extremely successful, both popularly and critically, at home and overseas, but going back to my review at the time, my main criticism was that we were treated to: "glittering jewels of individual performances, the focus and energy ebbed and flowed. The principals stepped up to deliver their party pieces - almost solo master classes - that dazzled but did not altogether lend themselves to the common purpose...Perhaps it has something to do with a director and cast having to communicate entirely through a third party. It seems logical that this arduous process is likely to produce a disjointed outcome: some things must surely be lost in translation." So to 2013 and Waiting For Godot.

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COMEDY OF ERRORS

November 15th 2013 3:45 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

COMEDY OF ERRORS, Bell Shakespeare Company at the Playhouse Theatre, Sydney Opera House, 12 November-7 December 2013. Photography by Matt Nettheim: Renato Musolino, Nathan O'Keefe, Demetrios Sirilas, Septimus Caton and Hazem Shammas; right: Nathan O'Keefe and Jude Henshall.

On opening night in Sydney after a long tour that began in June in Adelaide, the production's director Imara Savage rejoined her cast, telling the post-show crowd of her adventures in the interim (big name drops at this point) and also, rather more significantly, revealing a couple of things that may have been better left unsaid. She said, wryly and ruefully with a wrinkled nose, that of all the Shakespeare plays, John Bell had "given her" this one. And she also noted that since Adelaide there had been "some changes made" - and her tone suggested she didn't approve and there would be notes given.

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ALL MY SONS

November 13th 2013 4:05 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

ALL MY SONS, Darlinghurst Theatre Company at the Eternity Playhouse, 1 November-1 December 2013. Photography by Brett Boardman: Toni Scanlan and Andrew Henry; Marshall Napier, right.

When it was first announced that the "new" Eternity Playhouse would be opening with Arthur Miller's 1946 play All My Sons, I have to admit to wondering at the choice. It wasn't that simple, of course. The inevitable delays in bringing the building to completion meant the Australian play which had been intended as the premiere production was no longer in the running. It turns out to be fortuitous. Not only is the premiere production a fine one, it's also a reminder that although we're more familiar with Miller's later plays, this one deserves to be revived and savoured just as often.

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RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN

November 11th 2013 8:16 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN, Ensemble Theatre, 6 November-7 December 2013. Photography by Steve Lunam. Chloe Baylis, Diane Craig and Georgie Parker (above) and Chloe Bayliss (right).

The title of this new (2013) work by American playwright Gina Gionfriddo is perplexing in the extreme unless you're a fan of Courtney Love and/or Hole, in which case you'd know it's a line from their song Use Once and Destroy. In retrospect it makes a sardonic sort of sense because Love, at 49, is the train wreck, once was a warrior chick that Catherine (Georgie Parker) might hum along to. And she'd hear echoes of a proudly misspent youth and try to ignore how faint the sound now is.

Catherine and Gwen (Anne Tenney) are the yin and yang of the "women can have everything" argument of the second wave of feminism. Catherine is a famous TV academic and writer - hello Naomi Wolf - and years ago left behind Don (Glenn Hazeldine) to pursue her ambitions. Gwen, on the other hand, gave up hers to snaffle Don, have kids and be a homemaker. It quickly becomes apparent that if they're being honest, which is not their intention, each envies the other, the grass being greener, etc.

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