Reviews

On a bleak, dark stage cold with flurries of snow, Ebenezer Scrooge hunches over his desk, endlessly checking his riches. Behind him, Bob Crachit waits quietly for the end of another day. The silent, empty stage and the two lonely figures are a stark introduction to this new adaptation of Dickens’ time-honoured tale.

This was a lavish production. Minimalist was nowhere to be seen as every set towered over the performers. In Act 1 the church of Sant' Andrea della Valle looked magnificent with layers of gold on the walls and in the gaol of Act 3 a guard patrolled the upper level.

Setting the opera in Nazi Germany worked well. I particularly liked the “shepherd boy” being a young Jewish lad inside the gaol, with an uncertain future. In the second act Scarpia molests an embarrassed female officer in front of the other soldiers.

There hasn’t been a bad Anthony Skuse production all year – and there have been many. Skuse is a master artist; he re-sculpts and re-jigs but always remains respectful of the source material. Platonov under the direction of Skuse is no exception.

Certainly not one of Chekvov’s best plays, in the hands of a hard-working and inspired cast, the wonderfully intimate ATYP space, and Sir Skuse, we forgive the relentless, depressing plod of Platonov.

Campbelltown Theatre Group wraps up its 2014 season with an excellent production of  A Happy and Holy Occasion.

This play mixes humour, heart, drama, and darkness in equal amounts, as it tells the story of a family gathering in the home of the working class Irish-Catholic O’Mahon family. The “happy and holy occasion” is the farewell dinner for the youngest child, 12 year old Christy, before he leaves to train for the priesthood.