Theatre
Local interest in Scandinavian film and theatre seems to be rising, helped perhaps by the popularity of recent Scandinavian television noir. In the past two years, Belvoir Street Theatre has produced Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts (1882) and An Enemy of the People (1883) ...
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Nearer the Gods, the new play from David Williamson, has been described as ‘a big departure’ from his wonted repertoire of Australian middle-class studies. It departs from contemporary Australia for seventeenth-century England in exploring the events that lead to the publication of Isaac Newton’s ...
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It’s rare to see a new Australian play remounted after its début season, but Prize Fighter, currently playing at Melbourne Festival after seasons at La Boite, Belvoir, and a regional tour, is a welcome exception. It is a transformative experience that exemplifies the social significance of live theatre ...
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Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People is both one of his most approachable and most challenging plays. The plot is universal: an individual attempts to force his community to face an uncomfortable truth and is pilloried by his neighbours. The play can be and indeed has been set in whichever country it is ...
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While the bulk of Samuel Beckett’s monumental reputation rests on the plays – especially the mid-career, mid-century works that include Waiting for Godot (1953), Endgame (1955–57), and Happy Days (1961) – it is the novels that afford the most prolonged, immersive access to his enduring concerns and ...
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It is not entirely hyperbolic to claim that for more than half a century, Dario Fo and his partner in life and performance, Franca Rame, were the theatrical conscience of Italy. In a variety of theatrical forms and with a series of different companies, they toured the country, playing to huge ...
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Although his natural humility would make him dislike my saying so, Tim Winton is these days omnipresent in our national culture. Anywhere you look there is bound to be a new book, a television or film adaptation, or a stage adaptation, as with the State Theatre Company’s revival of That Eye, the Sky ...
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Australian classics have been surging onto our stages of late: Matthew Lutton and Tom Wright’s lauded adaptation of Picnic at Hanging Rock recently enjoyed success in London as well as Australia; Andrew Bovell’s stage version of The Secret River toured the country to critical acclaim ...
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August Strindberg thought Creditors, which premièred in its original Swedish in Copenhagen in 1889, his ‘most mature work’. Sitting alongside the more often performed The Father (1890) and Miss Julie (1889) in the playwright’s middle, ultra-naturalistic period, the play is an attempt to ...
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