I believe that each act in our lives is an act of accidental or considered curation. Curation is a selection process and the end result is that meaning is made – whether accidental or intentional. There is meaning in what we choose. Or meaning that we don’t choose (which, is, actually in itself, a choice).
Meaning is made, regardless. more…
Despite the fatigue that comes with the end of the year – there is a huge amount of energy and chatter around STC’s major show of the year. Traditionally the last show of the year is a cracker – Soderberg’s Tot Mom in 2009, Uncle Vanya in 2010 and this year Gross und Klein. more…
Currently the most talked about production in industry circles- Sydney Theatre Company’s production Of Blood Wedding by Federico Garcia Lorca translated by Iain Sinclair. more…
In 2010, Post (Zoe Coombs Marr, Mish Grigor and Natalie Rose) “embarked on a journey to find out which one of us is the best. We devised a system, defined our criteria and started tallying our scores.” more…
A forest of well dressed, well spoken women gather around a hunched hooded figure as sound throbs and squeals from an electric guitar. more…
The new Ross Mueller play at the Sydney Theatre Company has already nearly completely sold out, so rumour has it. And all I am going to say is BLOODY AWESOME! more…
It was late last night/early this morning when I posted my response to my first Sydney Festival review for 2011.
With some shows, it is hard how to respond without the inevitable lens of my experience colouring everything I see. This is where theatre lives in me. The resonance of things around me – people I love and have loved, conversations I have had bouncing and resounding in me -an echo, reminding me, or highlighting certain truths. This performance brought out the memories of my uncle Greg.
Greg was in some ways a mythic man: tall, elegantly dressed in a dark suit in his sister’s wedding photo. My father in a cream Safari suit -in many ways his opposite. I was a teenager when I first met Greg. He had been the absent uncle who lived in Sydney, far from my country hometown. An artist, a collector of taxidermic animals, a man who’s house was heavy with kitsch (my favourite as a girl being the teapot shaped like Miss Piggy) and a drag queen who offered me his little bo-beep outfit when I was on the verge of being introduced as a Masonic Debutante…
He drank fluffy ducks, plucked his eyebrows, owned a black, irritating and nervous pomeranian called “Tuxedo” and when he returned from Sydney, he persistently survived the cruelty and the bashings a country town offers the unusual and the interesting. The last time I saw him, I was 17 and moving to Sydney. He was lying on his couch, sallow faced.. waving with a limp hand at the suitcase of “life starting things” he’d packed in a suitcase for me to take. A dustpan and broom, a can opener, a green velvet rug, a crochet blanket he’d made himself. As I said my goodbyes that day, and grabbed the yellow leather handle of the case he said “Gussie, the gay community in Sydney is wonderful – if you are ever in trouble, you’ll always find someone to help you. They always helped me.” Greg died of an AIDS related illness that year.
Everyone has someone in their like that they can to look to as an example of pure, unashamed individuality. For me I have always sought out those who, in the face of it all – expectation, normality, the beige-ness of a predictable career path – have been determined to live a life truest to how they feel and who they are. And at times, the bravest of these people have often been members of the gay community. more…
It’s not easy taking a punt on a new play, and the scariest punt imaginable is the play which is absolutely positively new and from an absolutely positively new writer. In this case the sleight of hand is interesting: and the context is interesting. The Griffin Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company have joined forces to produce Anthony Weigh’s new play “Like a Fishbone.” more…
A post-event note on Stockholm- which I did manage to see- I scraped-in and sat in some dodgy seats in the last week of the production- I was largely curious to see what the fuss was about- why it had disappointed so many- why some complained of it being over-produced… why some complained of a glib script… why some complained that the actors were satisfactory as actors but not as dancers- and if any of this matters in the larger scheme of the story.
This is not a review- if you want a review- check out the SMH- or the STC website… this is my response, a personal response to Stockholm, not a review. more…
My last review of the year- I may very well squeeze a review of the year in theatre- but this is the last show I was needing to write up… which I will admit was a little tricky for a couple of reasons- the opening night being on the 23rd of December… also thinking alot about Verbatim theatre as a style/genre of theatre making, what it means for The Sydney Theatre Company to be so closely linked to an international community of filmmakers and yet seemingly so far away or disconnected from Sydney’s Theatre community. more…