Reviews

The Complete Works is the brainchild of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, an American touring company that took up near-permanent residency at London’s West End for nearly 10 years from 1996. And if ‘Anarchy in the UK’ is your comedy genre of choice, you will enjoy watching as three talented actors whiz through all of Shakespeare’s 37 plays in just under 2 hours.

Centenary Theatre Group served up a classic English farce with Edward Taylor’s No Dinner for Sinners, and the result was a satisfying comedic romp that delighted its audience with mistaken identities, escalating lies, and escalating absurdity. Under the meticulous direction of William McGreery-Rye, this production embraced the chaos of the script while maintaining enough structure to keep the story coherent and the laughs coming.

The University of NSW faculty is spread over a very, very wide area and there are no signs to Studio One. Where is it? Passing huge swimming and body-building facilities, shops and eateries, I eventually stumble on the Esme Timbery Creative Practice Lab and am directed down long steps to Studio One in the basement, and a first mention of Ordinary Days. There are no electronic programs working here because, as one student remarks: ‘we’re under a huge pile of bricks’.

In a play where nothing happens, except for one static actor entombed in rock talking about nothing for 100 minutes, it’s surprising that Samuel Beckett’s absurdist classic is so often staged.  Pamela Rabe shows us why in this compelling and intriguing STC production.