Drama

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Crimes and Misdemeanours. "Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love" by Brad Fraser State Theatre. "Speaking in Tongues" by Andrew Bovell. Griffin Theatre Company. [review]
(Adelaide Review, 1998-10) Bramwell, Murray Ross
Love and Human Remains, as the play was retitled in Fraser's own film adaptation, is a canny blend of soapie, crime thriller and young singles sitcom. In State Theatre's mainstage version, director Rosalba Clemente and designer Robert Kemp highlight the alienation of these under- thirtysomethings by locating them as if in separate capsules within an abstracted three storey apartment facade. Andrew Bovell's play examines aspects of relationship which are usually either avoided or treated with flippancy. His intertwining narratives and dramatic repetitions are creditable strategies for delving the secrets, lies, crimes and misdemeanours that darken many a suburban heart. Bovell's play is based around a version of six degrees of separation. A man meets a woman in a bar and they embark on an affair unaware that their partners are doing the same. Speaking in Tongues deals in the most extreme form of coincidence, it is like karma, or relentless fate.
Private Lives. "Closer" by Patrick Marber. State Theatre. [review]
(Adelaide Review, 1999-09) Bramwell, Murray Ross
In Closer there are few pipes and timbrels but there's plenty of mad pursuit. Everybody gets to lead and then to follow. Everybody gets a chance to win and everybody loses. Dan, living with Alice, now wants Anna who takes Larry but turns to Dan. Larry and Alice become allies and lovers until those who spurn them want them back. The key words are - apparently- truth and honesty, but often enough infidelity and confession triggers only more recrimination and revenge. Closer often proves to be an ironic title. These people know how to get inside each other's heads- particularly the men behaving badly- but intimacy is another matter. In this production for State Theatre, director Benedict Andrews brings a stylish intelligence to Marber's text. Justin Kurzel's design for the Space is a study in restraint. Mark Pennington's lighting bathes the stage exposing the players every move while the music, by Max Lyandvert, alternates between pulsing bass and drum samples and a vibrant, Balanescu-like string quartet.
Recent and Revisited. CD Reviews. [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2000-08) Bramwell, Murray Ross
CDs reviewed. Eric Chapus, Skin, Columbia Sony. Martin Gretschmann, Rocket in the Pocket, Matador/Festival. Dynomite D, By the Way, Trifecta Festival. Fusebox, Jolly Mukhertee, Madras Cinematic Orchestra. Senan's Haggart. Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, Astor Place, MRA. Jeff Buckley, Grace, Mystery White Boy. Elliot Smith, Figure 8, SKG Universal.
Power Games. "Blue Remembered Hills" by Dennis Potter. Brink Productions. [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2000-09) Bramwell, Murray Ross
In this Brink Productions version, director John O’ Hare has shown that the play works every bit as well on stage as it does in the Forest of Dean . Co-designed by O’Hare and Justin Pennington the set has a stylised mound at centre stage which is given vegetation by sprays of greens and browns from lighting designer Mark Pennington. There is a pool at the edge of the stage where luckless victims get periodic dunkings, ropes hang like lianas waiting for Tarzan swoops, while at the back, at mezzanine level, is the hayloft where the eventual tragedy unfolds. As ever, Brink has gathered an able team. William Allert as Willie and Syd Brisbane as Peter have the daunting task of establishing much of the initial detail. When Audrey, portrayed with fierce energy by Lizzie Falkland, and Rebecca Havey’s seductively manipulative Angela, play mothers and fathers with Donald, they echo the abrasive language of their own parents- the men bellowing orders, the women argumentative and scolding. No sooner has one game dissolved into sulking and tears then another combination reconvenes. After Peter has been beaten by John, staunchly represented by David Mealor, he reasserts himself against Donald (an inventive Justin Ractliffe) using his hated nickname, Donald Duck. Potter shows the teasing to be as relentless as it is arbitrary and cruel.
Déjà Vu. "Play with Repeats" by Martin Crimp. Balcony Theatre [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2000-09) Bramwell, Murray Ross
"Play With Repeats" is a fractured narrative which, as its title suggests, is a series of repetitions, echoes, variations on a theme, and might-have-beens. Anthony Steadman is a man turning forty. He works as a technician for a speaker coil manufacturer and has no friends. The play is a kind of accidental odyssey as he follows a series of prompts, cues and possible scenarios.
Picture Book Quality. "PoM pOm" by Pamela Allen. Patch Theatre [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2000-09) Bramwell, Murray Ross
It is often said that young people deserve the best theatre. And yet, just as often, they end up with the very opposite. Not only have we seen a reduction in the amount of work on offer in all age ranges in the past five years, but, seemingly, there has been a failure of nerve by performing companies desperate to compete with Sony Playstations and the global megaplex. The result has been a kind of theatre of ingratiation, full of brand name slang and back-to-front baseball caps, or worse, a conspiratorial cleverness pitched over the heads of children to the adults sitting up the back. All of which makes "PoM pOm", an adaptation from the picture books of best-selling New Zealand writer Pamela Allen, such a welcome event. Directed by Dave Brown, it marks his return to Patch as Artistic Director, and it reveals that his instincts for his audience are surer than ever.
Running on Empty. "Sweet Road" by Debra Oswald. State Theatre South Australia and Playbox [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2000-10) Bramwell, Murray Ross
Life, as everyone from your aromatherapist to your personal trainer will tell you, is a journey. We are all out there, pounding away on the four lane black top. That is, when we are not cruising the information superhighway or moping about the road not taken. In popular culture the open vista has beckoned everyone from Jack Kerouac to Toad of Toad Hall, Hopper and Fonda to Thelma and Louise. In every second Australian film for the past twenty five years someone has cranked up the HJ and headed off through the bulldust. They have travelled with estranged parents, psychopaths, country singers and wind-jammering transvestites. Mel Gibson tried it three times, Harvey Keitel less successfully once. Motoring the wide brown land- essential, of course, if you want to get from A to B, let alone Perth or Darwin- has become one of the well-worn tropes of Australian narrative. Which brings us to Debra Oswald’s "Sweet Road", a gridlock of stories of flight and arrival, of lives stalled and then, strike me lucky, set in motion again by the RAA of fate and the jumper leads of destiny.
A Play in Inverted Commas. "The Taming of the Shrew" by William Shakespeare. State Theatre South Australia [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2000-12) Bramwell, Murray Ross
There is nothing else in all of Shakespeare that has caused the sort of qualms that "The Taming of the Shrew" has over the past twenty years or so. The subduing of the fiery Katherina by her mocking suitor Petruchio and the proofs of her obedience in the final scene have not been welcome spectacles in a time when equality between the sexes and recognition of the entitlement of women has been a central issue in both the private and the public sphere. The fact that the last high profile presentation of the text was in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1967 film with those well-known marital neanderthals Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor playing the leads, only proved the point that this is a play better left out of sight. Look elsewhere for lively women - Rosalind in "As You Like It", Beatrice in "Much Ado", Viola in "Twelfth Night". Let them be cross-dressed, let them be assertive, let them marry if they must. But never let them obey.
Revelation. "Bare" by Toa Fraser. Madeleine Sami and Ian Hughes. [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2000-12) Bramwell, Murray Ross
Bare is an odd title for a stage work as richly arrayed as this. It is certainly unadorned - a two hander for actors who perform with minimal lighting and two chairs. But its language, narrative complexity and emotional energy mark this suite of twenty four monologues as impressive. Fraser, who describes himself as “half- English and half -Fijian, has said of Bare- “It is intended as a celebration of language, and most particularly the English language as it exists in New Zealand.”
Womadelaide Previewed. Womadelaide 2001 [preview]
(The Adelaide Review, 2001-02) Bramwell, Murray Ross
It is February and the “off-year” for the Adelaide Festival, so it must be time for Womadelaide. This is the sixth incarnation -including the Pimba train ride and the McLaren Vale boutique version in 1998 - and expectation is now higher than ever. This event has come a long way since its inception as part of the 1992 Festival of Arts.
Combat Zone. "Third World Blues" by David Williamson. State Theatre Company [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2001-03) Bramwell, Murray Ross
For an artist to return to a finished work and then revise it, is rarely a simple matter. So when, in 1997, David Williamson went back to his 1972 script "Jugglers Three" and reworked it, he again raised interesting questions about the creative process. In negotiation with Sydney Theatre Company director Wayne Harrison, Williamson not only overhauled the text of "Jugglers Three" he even re-instated its original, somewhat cryptic title, "Third World Blues".
Big World. Womadelaide 2001 [review]
(The Adelaide Review, 2001-03) Bramwell, Murray Ross
Womadelaide Mark Six has come and gone and its remarkable continuity is again assured. The key to its success is clear. It is well-funded, well managed and has a modus operandi that not only works but is shared by the up-to-25,000 crowd that fills Botanic Park at its peak attendance. Few outdoor festivals enjoy the support that Womad has - from Government departments, quangos, NGOs, arts organisations, Botanic gardeners, St John, the police, caterers and stall holders, all the many contributors to its organisation.
Heart in the Highlands. Bob Dylan with Paul Kelly. Entertainment Centre. [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2001-04) Bramwell, Murray Ross
This time he blew in from the West. Still on the Neverending Tour, and back in Australia - three years on, and sixth time round - Bob Dylan has turned his Sisyphean treadmill into a victory lap.
Return Journey. Emmylou Harris with Buddy Miller and Kasey Chambers. Thebarton Theatre. [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2001-05) Bramwell, Murray Ross
Emmylou Harris is surely one of the true Daughters of the American Revolution. And she has been at the centre of not just one, but several, musical insurrections. Teaming up with producer Daniel Lanois, she co-wrote new material and gathered an assortment of songs from Neil Young, Hendrix, Dylan, Anna McGarrigle, Steve Earle , Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch. The Wrecking Ball album was faithfully Emmylou, the shimmering voice sounding better than ever, but the mix was new. It is very fitting, then, that Emmylou Harris is touring with innovators such as guitarist Buddy Miller and rising Australian singer Kasey Chambers. In fact, it is Buddy Miller, mainstay of Harris’s band Spyboy, who opens the proceedings with a short set drawn from albums which tell it all -Poison Love, Cruel Moon, Your Love and Other Lies.
A House Among the Stars. "House Among the Stars" by Michael Tremblay. State Theatre Company of South Australia [review]
(The Australian, 2001-05-04) Bramwell, Murray Ross
State Theatre has succeeded with a work which, despite its soft edges and easy resolutions, has gentle charm and poetic accomplishment. This production has given us a memorable glimpse, the first on an Australian mainstage, of the work of one of Canada’s best known playwrights.
Cabaret in May. "Adelaide Cabaret Festival". [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2001-06) Bramwell, Murray Ross
The recent "Adelaide Cabaret Festival" has been a curious event. The result has been a mixed menu of middle of the road favourites, jazzy morning melodies, an outing for the ASO, a few choice items from here and there and a fair amount of the sort of popular comedy which we saw at the last "Adelaide Fringe". Some shows went wild - the "Sing-Along-Sound-of-Music" for starters- and, with modest box office targets and a built-in subsidy , performers such as Ross Skiffington, James Morrison, Julie Anthony and Judi Connelli were going to do well also.
Killer Joe. "Killer Joe" by Tracey Letts. Brink Productions and State Theatre Company [review]
(The Australian, 2001-06-15) Bramwell, Murray Ross
They are not a pleasant bunch in Mr Tracy Letts’s play but Brink’s version, with production support from State Theatre, takes us from Jerry Springer stereotype to a morality drama that is comic, shocking - and surprisingly full of feeling.
Back to Beguinnings. "Roger McGuinn". Governor Hindmarsh [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2001-07) Bramwell, Murray Ross
I first heard of Roger McGuinn when he was known as Jim. He was the serious young ectomorph in the houndstooth coat and little black lozenge spectacles on the cover of the first Byrds album. Foppish in their American Carnaby gear, singing harmonies four and five deep, the Byrds swooped on Bob Dylan songs and showed there really was another side to them. They layered and enriched the sketchy sound of early acoustic Dylan and with their careful diction raised up his poetic lyrics like jewellers setting gemstones. And the sound they added, like a dozen golden hammers, was Jim McGuinn’s chiming Rickenbacker twelve string guitar. McGuinn already had a career before the Byrds. As a kid barely out of high school he had been recruited to both the Limeliters and the Chad Mitchell Trio, riding high on the hootenanny craze of the early sixties. Growing up in Chicago he had been drawn to the folk scene, had attended the Old Town School of Folk and, at clubs such as the Gate of Horn, learned from such luminaries as Bob Gibson, Josh White and Odetta.
Wit. 'Wit' by Margaret Edson. Bluetongue Theatre [review]
(The Australian, 2001-07-23) Bramwell, Murray Ross
Often plays which use extensive literary sources end up being precious, or exercises in self-regarding cleverness. Margaret Edson’s Wit is not one of those. In its intelligence, subtlety and artful structure it also enables real feeling and insight into that comma - or is it coma ? - which separates life and death. In its inaugural work Bluetongue Theatre has articulated this in an honest and absorbing production.
Triptych."Art" by Yasmina Reza. State Theatre Company. [review]
(Adelaide Review, 2001-08) Bramwell, Murray Ross
Art is a play about friendship and the ways in which we are socially constructed by our friends and vulnerable to their disapproval. The play is about three men. Serge has bought a painting for 200,000 francs and it is white with white stripes. His friend Marc, something of self-styled connoisseur, is outraged, while Yvan, the third musketeer, is tactfully agnostic. The play revolves around their shifting alliances and the anxiety each feels when the other behaves uncharacteristically or unpredictably.

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