AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

August 19th 2010 3:25 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, Steppenwolf at the Sydney Theatre Company's Sydney Theatre, August 17-September 25, 2010. Photos: Grant Sparkes-Carroll

TRACY LETTS, actor and playwright and author of August: Osage County speaks, in the program interview, of the "shared experience" of theatre; and he's not just talking about an audience and the players, or the recognition by an audience of characters and situations in the play: he means both. And the sensation of that joyous and special dual engagement is tangible from the middle of the Sydney audience for what is, to date, his biggest hit.

Steppenwolf, the fabled Chicago theatre institution, is unique in the USA and its work in this production tells you why. As STC co-artistic director Cate Blanchett said after the opening night performance, it was a revelation for actors to watch the tight ensemble - and, she might have added, for the audience too. All but one of the company has been performing the play since it began, but that doesn't account for the seamless integration of well-oiled familiarity with astonishing spontaneity and freshness. That's the product of a deep well of skill and talent and an uncommon commitment to the common cause.

August: Osage County is set in a dot on the map of Oklahoma; one of those deceptively picturesque-sounding parts of the United States where the river is wide and lazy, where little towns have cute names like Hominy and Wynona and the summers are suicidally sultry. The heat of this particular August is made even more unbearable - in what ought to be the comfortable, rambling three-storey clapboard home of Violet and Beverly Weston - by Violet's insistence on sealed windows, drawn blinds and no air-conditioning. The play opens with Beverly telling the prospective housekeeper, Johnna, that he drinks and his wife takes drugs; he hands Johnna a volume of TS Eliot's poems and despite being fairly warned of what she's getting into, Johnna takes the job. She needs the work, she says. Pretty much with that, Beverly walks out of the house and disappears - for good.

Read the rest of this article and comment on it >>

la sonnambula

August 16th 2010 5:33 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

LA SONNAMBULA, Opera Australia at the Sydney Opera House until August 24, 2010. Photos by Branco Gaica

WATCHING the expressive hands of conductor Richard Bonynge (no baton) as he coaxes, cajoles, encourages, strokes and exhorts his orchestra and singers to be as one and to do it exquisitely is a beautiful thing. Listening to Bellini's old favourite from 1831 is equally delightful, especially when the night-prowling virgin of the title is played and sung by Emma Matthews.

Having made her foxy Covent Garden debut earlier in the year in The Cunning Little Vixen, under the baton of Sir Charles Mackerras, Matthews demonstrates in La sonnambula why these two pre-eminent conductors - from their very different musical standpoints - picked her as their leading lady. In the past few years - since she took on and made a brilliant fist of Lulu (for Australia's other brilliant operatic conductor, Simone Young) - Matthews has steadily and perceptibly matured and grown as a singer and actress. Early training at WAAPA means she has always been dynamic on stage and vocally confident, but Matthews now has command of all the competing and confounding elements of the modern soprano in the bel canto tradition and is a joy to watch and listen to.

Read the rest of this article and comment on it >>

Hansel and Gretel

August 11th 2010 1:42 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

HANSEL AND GRETEL Pacific Opera, Glen St Theatre, August 2010, Photos by John Kilkeary: main pic: Eva Kong and chorus, thumbnail: Eve Klein

CHRISTINE DOUGLAS was a brilliant Gretel for Opera Australia (alongside equally wonderful Suzanne Johnston as brother Hansel) and Douglas now directs a scintillating production of the Engelbert Humperdinck favourite for her own spunky young company, Pacific Opera.

Hansel and Gretel is an interesting theatrical piece that can be taken on two levels: a melodically rich and entertaining fairy tale of the siblings lost in the woods who narrowly escape a wicked witch; or, a morality tale that resonates today just as much as it would when children were warned off dangerous places with grim scary stories - rather than today's deeply unimaginative "stranger danger".

Read the rest of this article and comment on it >>

HELPMANN AWARD NOMINATIONS 2010

August 2nd 2010 9:33 pm | Theatre | News - By Diana Simmonds

Grim night in Sydney, this Monday 2 August and not only because the weather is totally sh*thouse: the Helpmanns are announced. I don't want to drag you through the seemingly endless list of categories (best usher, best actress in an amateur production of Emerald City, best assistant electrician in an international rocker's tour and so on). And I'm also mindful of being part of the Sydney Theatre Reviewers and therefore perhaps seen as biased, although my bias - freely admitted - is towards actors. But I'd like to make just a few observations.

The first ,and the one that will obviously exercise old media for the next day or so, is the "snub" to Cate Blanchett, the Sydney Theatre Company and its production of A Streetcar Named Desire. The Helpmanns have given it one (1) nod: best sound design. Ignored is Blanchett's extraordinary performance as Blanche Dubois (she was the Sydney Theatre Awards choice for 2009) and other elements of this towering production. The other Helpmann nominees in the category are Kathryn Hunter - Kafka's Monkey, Julie Forsyth - Happy Days, Jane Menelaus and Robyn Nevin, both - August: Osage County.

Read the rest of this article and comment on it >>

The God COmmittee

July 29th 2010 5:51 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

THE GOD COMMITTEE, Ensemble Theatre, July 23-August 29, 2010. Images by Steve Lunam

WHOSE LIFE is it anyway? is a question that was asked, effectively, by English playwright Brian Clark way back in 1972 with his play about a sculptor paralysed in an accident and wanting to be allowed to die. With the chief protagonist stuck in a hospital bed the debate and story raged around and within him with disturbing intensity: euthanasia, yes or no? It's a debate that rages still and in different ways.

Same, same but different is the less visible and rarely discussed argument arising from the organ transplant business. It's likely that you probably don't give much thought to how the decision is made as to who gets a potentially life-saving and life-prolonging vital organ. It never occurred to me to think about it, that's for sure. If I ever did I think I thought it sort of just happened. Mark St Germain's neat 80 minute play illustrates what a dopey idea that was.

Read the rest of this article and comment on it >>

DARRYN KING – NEW VOICE

July 26th 2010 1:26 pm | Theatre | News - By Diana Simmonds

IT'S A THRILL to be able to recommend to you a new critical voice in Sydney. Darryn King is a passionate enthusiast who lives and breathes theatre (and related entertainments and general lunacy). More than that, however, he can really, really write - which is more than be said for virtually all other bloggers.

As traditional media continues to contract and disappear up its own fundament, it's vital that new voices be encouraged and allowed to sparkle in the eFirmament. It's also important that those voices are attached to hearts and minds that want to strive to be as good, expert and rigorous as the art forms on which they commentate. And that's where Darryn is my cause for optimism and gladness.

Darryn also has lots of ideas and the energy and will to move them forward (tiny tribute to LaG in case you're wondering); his live West Side Story tweet-fest is a case in point and you can still read it and check the pix and much, much more on: backstageaustralia.wordpress.com/

Read the rest of this article and comment on it >>