Reviews

Climate change raises so many immense and challenging global complexities, that a physical theatre company is naturally overstretched in offering a meaningful perspective in barely an hour.

Marrugeku is well placed to give it a go, as an innovative yet decades-old company of Indigenous and non-Indigenous players, with one foot in Broome WA and another in Sydney. 

What better way could there be to warm your heart and soul than 120 minutes of the Australian String Quartet in their latest production, Vanguard!

Entertaining people from all over the world since 1985, the Australian String Quartet have been dedicated to musical excellence based in their home at the University of Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium of Music.

To celebrate their almost 40 years of entertainment, they present an evening of contrasting composers and styles; Beethoven, Harry Sdraulig and Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

THE PLAYING of farce is a difficult thing – many community theatre companies think it is an easy programme choice. It is anything but. 

Farce requires much precision and the director needs to be aware of – amongst other things - the requisite physical comedy, comic timing and discipline. The actors need to create strong characterisations and be able to perform in a credible larger-than-life way as the absurdities of the plot unfold.

And to do this it can be boiled down to what I term the “ABCDEF” (or alphabet) of farce:-

Short and pithy they may be, but these three Puccini operas remind us how sophisticated this master of storytelling is in aligning musical combinations with so many quick details of plot, theme and rich character.