Adelaide Festival of Arts 2018. Her Majesty’s Theatre. March 16 – 18, 2018
Xenos is a Greek word meaning "stranger" or "alien". Just as Prometheus, a Titan who is credited with the creation of man from clay defies the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humanity, an act that enabled progress and civilization, the Adelaide Festival production, Xenos, is precisely the opposite, showing us mankind’s ‘gift’ to humanity, namely war, that makes us strangers on Mother Earth.
By David Nielson. Roleystone Theatre. Directed by Brogan Smirke and Euan Macmillan. Cecil Andrews SHS Performing Arts Centre, Seville Grove, WA. 9-17 March, 2018
Congratulations to Roleystone Theatre for managing to get Robin Hood The Truth Behind the Green Tights to the stage. Just a couple of weeks before Opening Night, Roleystone’s heritage theatre was declared unsafe. The ‘Green Tights’ team managed to find a temporary venue, adjust the sets, notify all the ticket holders and reconvene – playing to capacity houses.
By Sarah DeLappe. Redline Productions. Old Ftiz Theatre (NSW). March 14 – April 14, 2018.
What a great vehicle Redline Productions has chosen to highlight the under-tapped wealth of women in theatre! Written by a woman, directed, designed and stage managed by women, and performed by nine fine, fit, feisty, female actors, this prize-winning first play by American playwright Sarah DeLappe raises the bar in the determined pursuit of recognition and equity across the arts.
Adapted from the memoir by Marguerite Duras by Lawrence Strangio; original translations by Barbara Bray, Leigh Harvey and Linda Coverdale. Dramaturg Annie Thorold. La Mama Courthouse, Carlton VIC. 15 – 25 March 2018
Lawrence Strangio, an always interesting, original and risk-taking director, has taken the bold step of adapting Marguerite Duras’ novella/memoir The Lover – and in an original and risk-taking way.
By Mary Galouzis. Adelaide Fringe. Presented by Talk Out Loud. Golden Grove Arts Centre then Bakehouse Theatre. March 9-17, 2018
Eight people are lost to suicide each day in Australia and globally it happens every 40 seconds.
Shocking as that statistic is, the devastation wreaked by suicide doesn’t stop with the tragic finality of the actual act. Across the world, from the second after the tragedy occurs, families and friends must deal with lifetimes of facing the reality of their loss.
Adelaide Fringe. Tandanya Theatre. February 17th – March 18th, 2018
Eleanor’s Story: Home Is the Stranger is biographical. A sequel to Eleanor’s Story: An American Girl in Hitler’s Germany, it is a 50-minute, one-woman show presented by Eleanor’s granddaughter, Ingrid Garner.
By Marguerite Duras, directed and adapted by Laurence Strangio. DURAS: Desire & Destruction season. La Mama Theatre. March 15 – 25, 2018
Destroy, She Said is part of the new Duras: Desire & Destruction season at La Mama. Four guests in an isolated hotel in the midst of a forest; a tennis game is heard but never seen, a strange card game that is somewhat foreboding. Is there madness looming? Or is this a gathering of post- holocaust German Jews seeking rebirth?
Presented by The Dizzy Biz. Adelaide Fringe Festival 2018. Gate 1 at Tuxedo Cat at Broadcast Bar. March 14 – 17, 2018
Being a little claustrophobic myself I can’t think of anything worse than being stuck in a lift with 3 complete strangers. Seems an unlikely premise for a musical, but it really works!
Four seemingly unrelated people enter a lift, only to have it break down and force them to be trapped in uncomfortably close proximity for more than 26 hours.
By Amer Hlehel. Directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi. Adelaide Festival. Space Theatre. 15-18 March, 2018.
Though this solo performance may, at first glance, appear to be a tale of autobiography by its performer – such is the passion and personal touch with which Amer Hlehel presents it – Taha is, in fact, a spirited, richly textured telling of selected experiences from the life of Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali (1931-2011).
Composer: Calvin Bowman. Librettist: Anna Goldsworthy. Victorian Opera. Conductor: Fabian Russell. Director: Cameron Menzies. Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse Theatre, March 13 – 15, 2018, then touring regionally.
Continuing its strong emphasis on building opera audiences, Victorian Opera celebrated the centenary of the first print of Norman Lindsay’s The Magic Pudding by reprising their operatic incarnation.
It was a delight.
Designed for touring to schools and involving local community/school choirs, the set was simple but effective and would be easily transportable and fit into any venue. The choruses all appeared to be unison for ease of learning.
