146 stories from Theatre Notes
There's a certain discomfort and sharpness, a sense of reaching beyond the limitations of merely making "good" theatre, that filled me with relief when I was watching On the Miscon…
The shortlistings for the Victorian Premier's Literary Prize were announced recently, and are now online at the Wheeler Centre's website. I mention it because this year the Wheeler Centre, i…
Briefly, before the week disappears into the irrevocable past. And a suggestion that if you have an idle nine hours, you should spend them at Robert Lepage's Lipsynch, now on at the Arts Cen…
Some notes
I saw Back to Back's Hell House - or, at least, the Hell House part of it - on Friday. I've been thinking about it ever since, and I want to get some thoughts down before I head …
"Publish? I don't publish my plays... Plays are made to be felt in the theatre. They should last as long as the performance does, that's enough... That is what makes the theatre so love…
My review of folk singer/poet Kate Fagan's collection First Light is now up at Overland Journal.
The debate around Queen Lear has been going on, and on. It's not only in the monster thread under my review, which broke even the record for Baal - hitherto the holder of TN's Most Commented…
North Melbourne Arts House is making my life very complicated this year. It has always been a venue notable for its curation of contemporary performance, but under the eye of creative produc…
For the first thirty seconds I thought we were in for something special in Queen Lear. Robyn Nevin in the titular role, regally costumed in red, is lushly illuminated backstage studying her …
Briwyant
On the evidence of Briwyant, Vicki Van Hout is rightly celebrated as one of our up-and-coming choreographers. There are moments of brilliance in this performance, which takes a Dre…
The Golden Dragon
L-R: Jan Friedl, Ash Flanders, Rodney Afif and Roger Oakley in The Golden Dragon. Photo: Melissa Cowan
Roland Schimmelpfennig's deconstructed play The Golden Dragon te…
Limitations. I haz them. And right now, I have to face the fact that I'm unable to run this blog as I would like. My other activities - which mean, among things, that I have a prospect of pa…
This week has been unexpectedly busy (in a non-theatrical manner), as the final copy edit for Black Spring arrived, marked "urgent", and has taken all of my time. And I also had to…
First, an apology and an explanation. Your humble blogger is heroically attempting to get out less, but Melbourne, you make it hard. I seem to be presently measuring the worth of Melbourne p…
In Macbeth, the ruling metaphor is darkness. Macbeth's "black and deep desires", pricked into life by the prophecies of the witches, overthrow the deepest oaths of feudal manliness…
Over the past couple of years, Chamber Made Opera, under the direction of David Young, has been investigating domestic space as a means for creating contemporary opera, quite literally produ…
Over the past few years, I've lost count of the number of columns I've read which lament the Youth of Today. Pundit after pundit has informed me that young people, Generation Whatever, are s…
As you probably know, Ms TN has been trying to get out less. I am writing a novel which I'd like to finish before September, or at least in the next decade, and then there are all the number…
The art of light writing, as playwrights like Oscar Wilde demonstrate, is a serious business. Writing a light play about serious business is even more serious. The danger is that "light…
Part of the problem in responding to the Next Wave Festival 2012 is knowing where to start. After much dithering, I'm going to begin by talking about the festival itself: I'll be posting abo…
A pointer to my latest review on Overland, which looks at Melbourne poet Philip Salom's recent heteronymic collections The Keeper of Fish and Keeping Carter, out from Puncher and Wattman Poe…
It may sound banal, but the most important thing, both in film and in the theatre, is the human being - the study of human beings. What you want above all, whether you are doing film or thea…
The Next Wave festival - a look at up and coming artists from around Australia, with a significant international component - is now in full swing, illuminating all sorts of hidden corners of…
Because Richard Bean's play The Heretic is about climate change, it attracted the notice of hardline climate change denier Andrew Bolt in the weeks running up to its opening. There was a min…
Today the Minister for the Arts, Simon Crean, is announcing the long-awaited review of the Australia Council. Early reports indicate that one of its major recommendations is the abolition of…
