Reviews

The marvellous thing about Australian performers is that they refuse to be beaten. If the theatres are closed and there’s no work, well then - create your own.

2021 marks 21 years of Steamworks Arts and to celebrate they are remounting their first production, Alana Valentine’s Savage Grace, with the original director and original cast.

First produced in 2001 at the Blue Room Theatre, Savage Grace is a story of love, death and ethics, featuring a relationship between a visiting American doctor and a hospital ethics professor. A clash of personalities and ethics precedes a passionate affair, against the background of the AIDS crisis. 

The radio play was the home entertainment norm in the days before television and here it is presented in that same manner but with the audience watching the “broadcast” while listening at the same time.  An interesting experience.  Actually, the initial short story was published in 1887 and has been adapted to both radio and film over the years since. This version is somewhat updated from the original but the effects are much the same. It is the fear of the unknown that frightens us more than anything else does - in this case, a three hundred year old ghost.

Blithe Spirit is one of Noël Coward’s iconic plays, along with Private Lives, Present Laughter and Hay Fever. First seen in the West End in 1941, it created a new long-run record for non-musical British plays and also did well on Broadway later that year.

This year marks its 80th anniversary, following a new film adaption in 2020 starring Judi Dench as the inimitable Madame Arcarti (first played on stage by Margaret Rutherford).