Adapted by Carol Ann Duffy. Directed by Rufus Norris. National Theatre Live. Participating cinemas across Australia from August 8.
One of the oldest English dramas (hailing from the 15th century), Everyman has been adapted by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy for this National Theatre production, recorded in hi-def video as part of the NT Live series and presented in cinemas nationally by Sharmill Films. It’s a remarkable piece of theatre that manages to be both contemporary and timeless – a morality play that has much to say about the hollowness of consumer culture and the ultimate pointlessness of accumulating material wealth when, as we all know, you can’t take it with you.
1951 Film restored by David Stratton. Cinema Nova, Carlton (Vic). August 8 – 18, 2015
The restored, the iconic film 1951 film of Offenbach’s only opera, The Tales of Hoffmann. This was an iconic film being the first opera filmed in colour and the first to be filmed as a film, rather than a recording of a live performance. So we had actors, or dancers, featured on[JG1] the film with others singing the roles.
By Brett C Leonard. Human Sacrifice Theatre Company. Fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne. 30 July – 9 August, 2015.
The Long Red Road is a play that sneaks up on you and finally grabs you by the throat. At first, you don’t know what the hell is going on. Somewhere in Kansas, a bitter mushroom farmer, Bob (Lee Mason), worn down and soured by duty, has a fractious relationship with Sandra (Marissa O’Reilly), a woman crippled in both her legs. Her defiant daughter, Tasha (Angelica Angwin) tells Bob she hates him. Seven hundred miles away, on or near a Lakota tribe reservation, self-destructive alcoholic Sam (Mark Diaco) drinks himself into oblivion in a bar run b
QL2 Dance. The Playhouse, Canberra. 29 July – 1 August, 2015
Revisiting the original, 2005, production of Reckless Valour, QL2, its artistic director, Ruth Osborne, and four more of the original roll of choreographers —Natalie Cursio, Jodie Farrugia, Fiona Malone, and Rowan Marchingo — as well as James Batchelor, a young dancer in the original work, have choreographed the work anew, with fresh restructuring under the guidance of dramaturg Paschal Danto Berry.
By Brenna Lee-Cooney, adapted from the novel by James Aldridge. Elysium Theatre presentation of a Fractal Theatre Production. Director: Brenna Lee-Cooney. Sandgate Town Hall, Brisbane. 30-31 July 2015
Outcasts or social misfits have never fared well in Australian society, or any society for that matter, and even worse in small-town Australia of the 1930s. This is the setting of Brenna Lee-Cooney’s play based on James Aldridge’s The Untouchable Juli, one of his six St Helen’s novels that include My Brother Tom and A Sporting Proposition which became the Disney movie Ride a Wild Pony.
Music & lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, adapted and with a new story by Adam Noviello & Madi Lee. For the Midwinta Festival, Butterfly Club, Melbourne CBD. 28 July to 9 August 2015.
Five performers and a pianist present a radically reimagined version of Jason Robert Brown’s original music theatre show, The Last Five Years. Adam Noviello and Madi Lee have taken the music, adapted some of the lyrics and ‘repurposed’ others, roped in a song or two from elsewhere (you’ll recognise a few) and created a very different scenario: the interwoven stories of five characters, three men and two women. The performers and director Leanne Marsland make clever use of the club’s bare and tiny stage; the only props are five stools.
By Samuel Becket. Queensland Theatre Company. Billie Brown Studio, Brisbane. Directed by Wesley Enoch. 18th July - 15th August, 2015
QTC's version of Becket's famous play is in town, this production having an interpretation with a distinctively Australian feel. First impressions to set the mood are an eerie score in the foyer by Alan Lawrence followed by a design by Penny Challen with, firstly, a stage curtain depicting the Australian landscape, a painting by artist John Glover, followed by a surreal set influenced by contemporary artists like Drysdale and Nolan: all combined to create an expression of the bleak and desolate 'entrapment' of the central character, Winnie.
Book, Music and Lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Presented by The Q, Queanbeyan Arts Centre. Directed by Stephen Pike. The Q, 253 Crawford Street Queanbeyan. 29 July – 15 August 2015
Director Stephen Pike triumphs again with a bright and brash take on this 70s-come-50s nostalgia classic. To sum it up, fabulous! The costumes, the singing, the choreography, the set design, the great use of LED lighting panels, and use of a largely young, enthusiatic cast all adds up to a vibrant experience. I can remember asking Mum what the phrase “a bun in the oven” meant after seeing Grease in Year 6, a class excursion the teachers had to fight to get past the P & C.
Composer: Tassos Ionnides. Librettist: Deborah Parsons. Artek Productions Pty Ltd. Director: Alkinos Tsilimidos. Venue: Arts Centre, Melbourne. July 30 to August 1, 2015
Numerous theatrical events have commemorated this year’s centenary of Gallipoli. New Australian contemporary opera Women in War takes quite a different tack, showing how World War 1 affected women, through the eyes of three contrasting characters.
By Euripides. Complete Works Theatre Company. Union House Theatre, University of Melbourne. 28 – 31 July 2015.
The character of Medea will be known forever as ‘the woman who killed her children’. Of course, it’s more complicated than that. A despised outsider – a ‘barbarian’ - in Corinth, driven mad (or is she?) when she is dumped by her opportunist, social climber husband, Jason, for a younger model, and she and her children by him are about to be sent into exile…
