State Theatre Company of South Australia’s tag line for this play is “the play that hit theatre like a sledgehammer”. Upon viewing Sarah Kane’s Blasted, you can understand why. It’s a play that should come with trigger warnings, its setting in the (relatively) intimate Space Theatre forcing its already controversial content into your face. The…
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Set in Margaret Thatcher’s England, Top Girls portrays a world in which women are oppressed by the capitalist social system in which they live. It is a play so entrenched in its era that the actors’ costumes are topped off with shoulder pads. The play made waves when it was first produced at the Royal…
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The gender imbalance in Australian theatre has been a talking point over the past few years. In South Australia this imbalance, which sees men greatly outnumber women as playwrights, directors and artistic directors, was evident in the State Theatre Company of South Australia’s 2011 season, with all eight plays authored by men. It is not…
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In a joint production, Windmill Theatre and the State Theatre Company of South Australia have undertaken an ambitious task: creating not only a new musical, but one that is also suitable for children. Pinocchio, written by Julianne O’Brien and based on the original children’s tale by Carlo Collodi, is a colourful production, full of energy,…
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Originally performed as part of the 2012 Adelaide Fringe Festival, Squidboy is show about, well, a squid boy. New Zealand’s Trygve Wakenshaw (of Auckland theatre company Theatre Beating) is the squid in question, a tall, bearded man decked out in a pointed hat and long, flowing, tentacled arms. Through just this simple costume Wakenshaw becomes…
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For his last show as the Artistic Director of State Theatre Company of SA, Adam Cook has selected a well-known and much loved author. Tennessee Williams once described The Glass Menagerie as the saddest play he’d ever written. To depict that kind of emotion on the stage as a farewell would be a stunning departure,…
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The main question on one’s mind upon hearing about Henry Rollins‘ spoken word tour maybe well be: what exactly is a spoken word tour, and is it filed with sub par haikus? The answer, at least in this case, is a thankful no. This spoken word show starts out with the comedic stylings of Bruce…
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Sepia is a play about cuttlefish. It’s also not about cuttlefish at all. It’s a play about family, about big company construction and small town politics, about the environment, about opportunity – all jammed into about 50 minutes. Directed by Nescha Jelk, Sepia tells the story of a Whyalla family, tracking their progression through life…
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Bob Downe is one of those Australian comedians who most of you would probably identify as just “that guy”. You know, those people who have been around for ages but don’t seem to do much these days to warrant their continual presence on your cultural radar. When Bob and his polyester pants returned to Adelaide…
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Just as you should never judge a book by its cover, you should ordinarily never judge a play by its title – but it’s pretty much all in there with this one. The only thing left out is that the life of Charles Darwin, and the development of his seminal work The Origin of Species,…
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Just waiting outside the Old Adelaide Gaol for the doors to open confirms the idea that this won’t be your ordinary theatre show. Adventuring in the yard, my friend and I find a makeshift grave remembering ‘Missy’; the discovery seems fitting given what little I know about the show. When asked about Present Tense’s Chants…
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Based on the autobiographical book by Timothy Conigrave, Holding the Man tells the story of a romance which begins in high school and lasts until both partners die. It’s an enduring love, often shaken but never broken, ending only when the HIV which both Tim (Luke Clayson) and his partner John Caleo (Nic English) have…
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Mentioning Andrew Bolt’s name is controversial. Examining his writing riles some up, encourages some, disgusts others. He’s most recently been in the news for breaching the Racial Discrimination Act in several of his columns, which are still available to read online if you must; however, as you read them I would encourage you instead to…
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Winner of the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Sam Shepard’s Buried Child is a story about a family with a secret, a dark skeleton in the closet that the whole family remembers but no one will talk about. Set in rural America in dried-up farming country, the story revolves around the return of Vince (Tim…
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