culture
theatre
theatre July 14, 2018
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ much-hyped Gloria is well executed by MTC, but its pretensions outweigh its eminence.
theatre June 2, 2018
A tricked-up Andrew Lloyd Webber version of a timeless classic has the viewer realising they’re not in Kansas anymore.
theatre March 10, 2018
‘Beautiful: The Carole King Musical’ and ‘The Show Goes On’
While the cast of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical fails to deliver an uplifting experience, Bernadette Robinson, in her solo performance of The Show Goes On, is transcendent as she channels the great women of song.
theatre May 19, 2018
Playwright Patricia Cornelius takes centre stage
She’s a writer whose plays have been widely lauded by critics but largely neglected by the mainstream. Now Patricia Cornelius’s work will take its place on the main stage. “It sounds so hifalutin, but my ambition was really just to be able to create great work … that I felt soared. It never entered my mind that it would happen in the mainstream.”
theatre December 23, 2017
Theatre director Elizabeth LeCompte
As Elizabeth LeCompte’s theatrical take on a controversial 1971 debate about women’s liberation heads to the Sydney Festival, the director talks about art and feminism, then and now. “We thought [The Town Hall Affair] was too urbane and distant for most people to be interested in,” she says plainly, but “things just broke around it”.
theatre December 1, 2017
John Bell delivers perhaps his finest performance as a man suffering dementia in Florian Zeller’s masterpiece The Father.
theatre October 21, 2017
Billie Piper’s performance in Lorca’s tragedy Yerma caps a powerful production at the Young Vic for the ‘antipodean Orson Welles’, Simon Stone.
television October 21, 2017
Actress Pamela Rabe on tackling Ibsen
Following the success of her Glass Menagerie with Eamon Flack, Pamela Rabe reunites with the director to explore the knottiness of Ibsen’s Ghosts. “I’m never one to sit around and wait for the phones to ring,” she says. “I love working in the theatre, and I work a lot in the theatre.”
theatre September 15, 2017
Gary Abrahams’ production of Angels in America is stark and shrewd, and has in Helen Morse a virtuosic display of restrained acting.
television August 12, 2017
Anthony LaPaglia’s pioneer spirit
Long before Australian actors were celebrated in the US, Anthony LaPaglia was forging a solid career in theatre and movies. But, he says, his rise to stardom could not have been more unexpected.
theatre July 21, 2017
Sam Strong’s production of the timeless farce Noises Off falters in pacing and believability, delivering an awful production of a play that is about an awful production of a play.
