146 stories from Theatre Notes
Since the beginning of 2014 I've been logging my disparate online essays and reviews in one place, so they're easier to track. You can find the Miscellany tumblr here.
Theatre Notes will remain here as an archive. The blog is fully searchable using the search box to the right, and there are browsable lists of all reviews since 2004 and of notable interview…
Dear Readers
As some of you will already know, I've decided to close down Theatre Notes. It's a decision that's been staring me in the face for a while now, and it's fair to say that I've b…
Warning: here be spoilers
From medium to medium, the real is volatilized, becoming an allegory of death. But it is also, in a sense, reinforced through its own destruction. It becomes reali…
Last week I saw two adventures in theatrical poetry. Malthouse Theatre literally brought poetry into the theatre with Jane Montgomery Griffiths's and Marion Potts' theatricalisation of Dorot…
Despite Melbourne's uncertain spring, Ms TN had a most excellent adventure at the 2012 Melbourne Festival, Brett Sheehy's last before he takes up the reins as AD of the Melbourne Theatre Com…
Melbourne Festival Diary #10
After three weeks of full-on performance, Dance Teritories was a refreshing return to the basics: a stage, a performer, an audience. Dance Territories presented…
Melbourne Festival Diary #9
We're heading towards the end of the festival, which closes on Saturday, and Ms TN is feeling, truth be told, rather ragged. On the one hand, devoting myself to …
Melbourne Festival Diary #8
I woke the morning after seeing the Schaubühne Berlin's production of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People seething with a burning, undirected anger. I don't k…
Festival Diary #7
Chamber Made Opera's innovative series of Living Room Operas - small-scale opera performances commissioned as site-specific works and performed in private houses - has pro…
Melbourne Festival Diary #6
Even off the plan, the strongest aspect of the 2012 Melbourne Festival was always the dance. It's a feeling borne out in the performances I've seen: William Fors…
Melbourne Festival Diary #5
Holding note: Sometimes I find that all that emerges from my fingertips is a sludge of meh. This can particularly happen when I've been knocked out by a work: al…
Melbourne Festival Diary #4
Some notes on Orlando
White. No colour, every colour; plenty and absence at once. The empty page awaiting inscription, the page which may be shredded or burned…
Melbourne Festival Diary #3
It may have only opened on Thursday, but the Melbourne Festival is now well into its stride. Aside from the Forsythe Dance Company, my highlight so far has been …
Melbourne Festival Diary #2
I Don't Believe in Outer Space, Forsythe Dance Company; Never Did Me Any Harm, Force Majeure.
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I used to say that I enjoyed seeing dance because it gave me …
Festival Diary #1
The Melbourne Festival officially opens tonight, but a couple of pre-opening events have already tempted Ms TN out of her burrow. Over the past two nights, I've seen two c…
Know someone who's made an outstanding contribution to the Australian performing arts? I thought so. You should be nominating them for the 2012 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards. Right now,…
As we all know, three members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot were recently imprisoned after a farcical trial in which they were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious …
Okay, okay, I know I swore that I was writing no reviews for a month. But just this one, because it's important.
I was completely unprepared for the emotional impact of watching Jenny Kemp'…
Dear everybody: as we all know, good intentions are the road to hell. And Ms TN is full of good intentions. I wrote them all out this morning, having cleared some space to catch up on the sh…
'Tis the season for theatre launches, which gives Ms TN ample opportunity to exploit her genius for SNAFU. Recently my trigger finger gave the MTC's pr department conniptions by blithely twe…
Regular readers will be chortling into their coffee to hear that Ms TN has been yet again ruefully contemplating her total inability to control any aspect of her writing life. Viz: yet again…
A brief talk on the plays of Patrick White, which I delivered yesterday at the Melbourne Writers Festival as part of the event Remembering Patrick White. My fellow panelists were David Marr,…
Brett Sheehy's first season as artistic director of the Melbourne Theatre Company was launched last night. It's fair to say that the 2013 program been rapturously received: it's the most ima…
It's that time of the year again, and I have a busy weekend coming up. If you want to stalk me at the Melbourne Writers Festival, here's the roadmap. I'm part of four sessions: two events ar…
