Reviews

Recordings are wonderful, and an excellent way to expand your musical listening repertoire, but there is nothing to compare with being enveloped in sound that you can see, hear and feel!

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra have clearly put a lot of thought into their latest concert, Symphony Series 6 - Shadows. From the soothing sounds of Peggy Glanville-Hicks, to the virtuosity of Britten’s Violin Concerto and the ferocity of the mighty Shostakovich 10, it is a memorable evening!

Here’s a great American play about two troubled blood brothers, exact polar opposites, whose savage relationship reveals much of America’s pent-up resentments. First produced in 1980, it demonstrates the tremendous rage of writer/actor Sam Shepard when he was dealing with betrayal and disappointment. The writer of over 50 plays, he died in 2015, and his temper was well known. This tempestuous play goes some way to revealing why.

There are 17 multi-talented performers graduating from the QAEMT this year and you can see their showcase performance at the intimate Tony Gould Gallery at QPAC – a great chance to see tomorrow’s stars up close and personal. It’s difficult showing off their triple-threat dance moves in such a small space, but it is perfect for imparting their strengths in acting and singing. I thoroughly enjoyed all the performances, so I am not going to single out any one performer.

Unveiling Shadows sets your expectations from the moment you enter the theatre. What you’re about to see will be imaginative, artistic, and risky. The stage is littered with white chairs, some cut to appear if they’re mid-motion and emerging from beneath the floor, others stacked precariously in sculptural piles. A few black chairs and chair parts hover from the ceiling, like shadowed sentinels. The rear is veiled in colourless plastic sheeting, draped thinly over parts of the set so that it becomes both surface and scrim, functional and ghostly.