New Year's Eve

I woke up this morning with an old poem going round and round in my head. And then I saw that Duncan Graham - no mean playwright himself and...

Vale Harold Pinter

I'm sad to hear that Harold Pinter has died, aged 78, after a long battle with cancer. Michael Billington, who wrote a recent biography ...

Review: Shane Warne: The Musical

(Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm supposed to be having a break from theatre. But I'm still reviewing for the Oz...)Shane Warne: The Musical, b...

So, what happened?

At the end of every year, one has the same conversations. "I can't believe it's nearly Christmas! Wasn't it March only a fe...

Death of the critic

In a must-read think-piece, Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert laments the cannibalistic celebrity culture of the daily press, citing...

Review: Dust

Dust, written and directed by Donna Jackson, composed and performed by Mark Seymour. Music directed by Tracy Bourne, media and film by Malco...

Review: Anatomy Titus, Fall of Rome

Anatomy Titus: Fall of Rome: A Shakespeare Commentary, by Heiner Müller, translated by Julian Hammond, and directed by Michael Gow. Designed...

Dark ages?

Lifting my studious head from the bloody skirmishes of 5th century Denmark, I stumbled over a report which claimed that things appear scarce...

A brief fitt

It's gone quiet because I'm back with Beowulf and the Geats, squinting through the Anglo-Saxon and picking out another version. I...

Review: Care Instructions, I Like This

Care Instructions by Cynthia Troup, directed by Margaret Cameron. Music by David Young, lighting design by Danny Pettingall. With Jane Bayly...

Review: The Women of Troy

The Women of Troy by Euripides, adapted by Tom Wright and Barrie Kosky, directed by Barrie Kosky. Designed by Alice Babidge, lighting by Dam...

Review: Avast and Avast II - The Welshman Cometh

Avast & Avast II - The Welshman Cometh, by Black Lung Theatre Company, presented by the Malthouse. With Sacha Bryning, Gareth Davies, Th...

Poems at Meshworks

MESHWORKS - the Miami University Archive of Writing in Performance - has uploaded several videos of readings from the Soundeye Cork Internat...

Review: The Hypocrite

The Hypocrite by Molière, adapted by Justin Fleming, directed by Peter Evans. Designed by Stephen Curtis, lighting by Matt Scott, music by I...

Children in art

The Australia Council yesterday released its Draft Children in Art Protocols, which will determine council funding where artists are working...

Linksses, my preciouss

Summer is icumen in, meaning that 2008 is rushing to its close with, on my part, a feeling of inexpressible relief. Wasn't it March only...

Review: The Lower Depths

The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky, directed by Ariette Taylor. Designed by Adrienne Chisolm, lighting by Emma Valente. With Adam Pierchalski,...

Hope and so on

Over the weekend, Ms TN's body found new and nasty ways to remind her that she is human, all too human. I succumbed to a few minor but u...

Hello, America!

Welcome back to the world!

Review: The Masque of the Red Death, Yibiyung

(Or: yes, there is life after MIAF...)The Masque of the Red Death, adapted from a story by Edgar Allan Poe, directed by John Bolton. Music b...

Quick notes

Brett Dean, artistic director of the Australian National Academy of Music, passionately defends the academy in today's Age against the f...

Sporrans of optimism

The Malthouse Theatre launched its first 2009 season last night, with a bunch of kilted bagpipers doing the full skirl. The pipers cued enou...

MIAF 2008: The Wrap

The Melbourne Festival this year had a surreal edge. As capitalism crashed about our ears amid headlines of financial doom, it had the air o...

MIAF: That Night Follows Day

Festival Diary #12: FridayThat Night Follows Day by Tim Etchells. Tim Etchells & Victoria. Merlyn Theatre, CUB Malthouse. October 24. So...

Sunday morning

And I'm still standing! Quelle amazing! I can't match The Boyd's 30 shows - I have very definite limits before everything begin...

MIAF: Appetite

Festival diary #11: ThursdayAppetite by Ross Mueller, directed by Kate Denborough. Set design by Kennedy Nolan Architects, lighting design b...

MIAF: Romeo and Juliet

Festival diary #10: WednesdayRomeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, directed by Oskaras Koršunovas. Designed by Jurate Paulekaite, costu...

Rhubarb rhubarb

Talk among yourselves while Ms TN sits at her desk in strenuous attitudes of thought, wondering how to write about Oskaras Koršunovas's ...

MIAF: Endgame

Festival diary #9: MondayBeckett: Endgame/Bach: Chaconne by Samuel Beckett and JS Bach. Directed by Anne Thompson and William Henderson, des...

MIAF: Corridor

Festival diary #8: SundayCorridor choreographed by Lucy Guerin. Set design by Donald Holt, lighting design by Keith Tucker, costumes by Paul...

MIAF: The Grey Autombile, England, 7 Important Things

Festival Diary #7: Thursday, Friday and SaturdayEl Automovil Gris (The Grey Autombile), directed by Claudio Voldes Kurt. Teatro de Ciertos H...

MIAF: DJ Spooky, The Book of Longing

Festival Diary #6: Wednesday and ThursdayTerra Nova Sinfonia Antarctica by Paul D Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, performed with A...

One week in...

...and taking a breather today. I'll catch up with DJ Spooky's Terra Nova Sinfonia Antarctica (hypnotically beautiful) and Leonard C...

The death of ABC Radio National

I've long contended that the arts are the canary in the coal mine of media quality. Healthy arts coverage signals a wider vitality and d...

MIAF: Food Court

Festival Diary #5: Sunday Food Court, devised by the company, directed and designed by Bruce Gladwin. Lighting design by Andrew Livingston (...

Today's essays for serious young insects

Matt Clayfield at Esoteric Rabbit on Elision Ensemble's The Navigator and his conversation with Jana on Chunky Move's Two Faced Bast...

MIAF: Two Faced Bastard, Interpreti Veneziani Baroque Ensemble

Festival Diary #4: Sunday and TuesdayTwo Faced Bastard, directed and choreographed by Gideon Obarzanek and Lucy Guerin. Set design by Ralph ...

MIAF around the blogs

Melbourne bloggers are out in force at the festival, many of them seeing things that Ms TN, despite her most heroic efforts, is missing. Tim...

MIAF: Patti Smith

Festival Diary #3: Sunday and MondayPatti Smith in Concert, Hamer Hall; Patti Smith and Philip Glass: A Tribute to Allen Ginsberg, Playhouse...

MIAF: The Big Game, Three, Kitten

Festival Diary #2: SaturdayThe Big Game, directed by Sue Giles. Designed by Geoff Kennedy, lighting by Richard Vabre, music composed by Ania...

MIAF: The Schönberg Ensemble, The Navigator

Melbourne Festival Diary #1: Thursday and FridayThe Schönberg Ensemble, Program 2. Conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw. Instrumental soloists Ger...

Patti Smith at Readings

The scene at Readings yesterday, where I was the "conversation" bit of "Patti Smith in conversation". Somehow Readings m...

On art, children and scandal

Before I dive into the maelstrom of the Melbourne Festival, which opens tonight, I thought I'd briefly revisit the latest Henson fracas,...

Crrritical oxygen

Pace my comments below on the air of the blogosphere, here's a reason why it matters, courtesy of a TN reader - a most interesting respo...

Review: Hitlerhoff/Villanus

Fringe Festival: Hitlerhoff, written by Tom Doig, directed by Erin Kelly. Video by Anto Skene and Puck Murphy, sound by Keith McDouglass. Wi...

The travails of PLA

I may have mentioned once or twice that I have a brutal muse. Its presence has the general effect of a large steel hammer being dropped into...

The Henson Case

My copy of David Marr's new book, The Henson Case, arrived this morning, and I have just finished reading it. Extracts are printed in to...

Getting heard: the realpolitik of arts advocacy

Robert Musil (1880-1942), the great German novelist and intellectual, observed once that if there was to be real social change of any kind, ...

Review: The Heart of Another is a Dark Forest / In the Arms of a Lion

Melbourne Fringe Festival: The Heart of Another is a Dark Forest, directed by Kate Sulan and Ingrid Voorendt. Set design by Emily Barrie, li...

Ben Ellis gets blogging

Direct your cursors now to Parachute of a Playwright, where Ben Ellis responds to the reviews of his recent play The Zombie State. Aside fro...

New look MTC

The MTC launched its 2009 season on Monday night, no doubt with fountains of champagne and speeches. Your faithful blogger was moping at hom...

Brain update

A state-wide police alert has resulted in several unconfirmed sightings of Ms TN's brain, which disappeared without trace while on holid...

Bits and pieces

Yes, it's me, back from an all-too-short wallow in the ponds of idleness. I bought 6kg of books, read some of them, looked at lots of vi...

Review: Just Macbeth

Just Macbeth by Andy Griffiths and William Shakespeare, directed by Wayne Harrison. Design by Pip Runciman, lighting design by Martin Kinnan...

Time out

Ms TN is taking a few days off. Usually "time out" is code for something work-related, but this time she's doing as normal peo...

Review: The Zombie State

The Zombie State by Ben Ellis, directed by Daniel Schlusser. Set and costumes designed by Kate Davis, lighting design by Niklas Pajanti and ...

Dogs in the west

I'm all for theatres in the west, which is my side of town. When Simon Stone opened the Hayloft Project in Seddon, I was briefly excite...

It's my birthday...

...and I'll blog if I want to. Was there a better way to usher in the anniversary of my nativity than by sitting up until 3am, drinking ...

La Mama gets there

News just in:Only two weeks out from its deadline, La Mama has raised the $1.8 million to secure the purchase of its Faraday Street home in ...

Jamieson makes it "relevant"

If theatre is to be "relevant", what does that mean? Nigel Jamieson will take the bull by the horns next week when he delivers thi...

Review: Red Sky Morning

Red Sky Morning by Tom Holloway, directed by Sam Strong. Designed by Peter Mumford, lighting design by Danny Pettingill. With Erin Dewar, Sa...

Personal

Time, maybe, to return to some basics. Recently on this blog there's been some discussion, if it can be called that, about the persona o...

The Minister You Have When You Don't Have A Minister

While our elusive Arts Minister, Mr Peter Garrett, spends his time propping up the pulp mill industry, it's nice to know that at least o...

Review: Vamp

Vamp by Meow Meow and Iain Grandage, directed by Michael Kantor, musical direction by Iain Grandage. Designed by Anna Tregloan, lighting des...

The perils of children's theatre

Review: The Lonesome West, The Time Is Not Yet Ripe

The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh, directed by Görkem Acaroglu. Design by Emma Kingsbury, lighting design by Katie Sfetkidis, sound desig...

Awards awards

I almost forgot to report the winners of the RE Ross Trust Play Award, which were announced at a glittering dinner before the assembled lite...

Review: Life is a Dream

Life is a Dream by Pedro Calderón, translations by Beatrix Christian, directed by Daniel Schlusser. Set and costumes by Marg Howell, lightin...

Newsy bits

This year's winner of the VCA's George Fairfax Memorial Award is Simon Stone, actor-about-town and founder of The Hayloft Project, o...

Review: Ninety

Ninety by Joanna Murray-Smith, directed by Simon Phillips. Designed by Andrew Bellchambers, lighting design by Nick Schlieper. With Melinda ...

Archival adventures

A couple of bloggers have been digging into their archives and returning with some rich reflections. George Hunka at Superfluities Redux rep...

Divertissement

Andrée Greenwell emailed me yesterday, asking if I was planning to write anything about her show The Villainelles, which was on for two nigh...

Festivally notes

As you all know by now, it got through: this week it was announced that Melbourne is now, after Edinburgh, the second UNESCO City of Literat...

Stuff

At this time of year, every man and his dog (except this little puppy and, oh, about a billion others who are sitting at home watching the O...

With friends like these...

Via Skepticlawyer, Ms TN this morning read some astoundingly crass comments by the Age's art crrritic, Robert Nelson, which were publis...

This Author business

It's Sunday, enough excuse to be bloggishly personal... Ms TN's week as an Author has left me feeling a little (as Bilbo said to Gan...

Review: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams, directed by Gale Edwards. Set and costumes by Stephen Curtis, lighting design by Matt Scott, mu...

Epic? That's not half of it...

In the run-up to the Melbourne Festival, Spark Online is publishing a mega-interview with artistic director Kristy Edmunds. Like a proper ep...

Review: Lands End

Lands End by Philippe Genty. Compagnie Philippe Genty. State Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, until August 16. Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Ce...

Review: Axeman Lullaby

Axeman Lullaby, choreographed and directed by Phillip Adams, score by David Chisholm. Lighting design by Paul Jackson and Niklas Pajanti, co...

Heaven on a stick

I mean, Dr Who meets Shakespeare! The RSC's latest Hamlet, starring David Tennant, has been the most hotly anticipated show in Britain f...

Full Dress Press

Very interesting news in my mailbox this morning. Full Dress Productions, which under David Frazer has been producing some very respectable ...

On Ecstasy

Those who have followed Barrie Kosky's theatre over the past two decades should already know that the man is a rampant sensualist. This ...

Blackout

In a neat illustration of tech age pathetic fallacy, TN has been cut off from the world (gasp) since Wednesday, the internet problems coinci...

Alison's Authorial August

As I have always suspected, being an Author is not the same as being a Writer. It might even be something like the opposite. I'm beginni...

Experiment and thorns

The blogs are running hot with a debate on the issue of experiment. It begins with US music critic Joe Queenan, who launched a broadside in ...

Review: Blackbird

Blackbird by David Harrower, directed by Peter Evans. Set and costumes by Christina Smith, lighting by Matt Scott, sound design by Ben Grant...

Review: Hamlet

Hamlet by William Shakespeare, directed by Marion Potts. Designed by Fiona Crombie, lighting design by Nick Schlieper, composer Sarah Blasko...

Review: The Inhabited Man, Holiday

The Inhabited Man by Richard Murphet, directed by Richard Murphet and Leisa Shelton. Design by Ryan Russell, sound design by Jethro Woodward...

Monday roundup

A number of bits and pieces catch my eye this morning:1. Arts Minister Peter Garrett has asked the Australia Council and Screen Australia to...

Words, words, words...

Ms TN has not been idle this week. Oh no. She's been dragging her jetlag out to no less than four openings (not ideal for the first week...

Joss Whedon goes blog

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on VimeoBehold the future of the internet... TV execs are no doubt waking up at 4.48 am s...

MIAF 2008

ASK Kristy Edmunds what is most exciting about the 2008 Melbourne Festival program - her fourth and, sadly for many of us, her last - and sh...

Germaine lets fly

It was bound to happen. Our Germaine has delivered a couple of fast left hooks at Joanna Murray-Smith, whose play based (or not based) on La...

Meditations on SoundEye

Or, How Little Alison Learned to Love the Bomb AgainOnstage, I am a real person, not a "persona." The people for whom I play are j...

Speaking with grace

It was good to see Bill Henson speaking publicly for the first time after the recent fracas and negotiating the inevitable media glare with ...

...and also

My publisher tells me that my new collection of poems, Theatre, is at last in book form (it took a little longer than expected, and I just m...

Three Men in a Bottle

This might displease Diana Simmonds, who thinks that it's outrageous that I speak about my husband's work (hey Diana, last I looked,...

Jetlaggish meditations

Your faithful blogger is back is town, with a baroque case of laryngitis incubated on the long-haul flight and an even more spectacular dose...

Review: ...Sisters

…Sisters, adapted and directed by Chris Goode from Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. Designed by Naomi Dawson, lighting design by Anna Watson....

Review: Relocated

Relocated, written and directed by Anthony Neilson. Designed by Miriam Buether, lighting by Chahine Yavroyan, sound design by Nick Powell. W...

Review: Comus

Comus by John Milton, composed by Henry Lawes, directed by Annilese Miskimmon. Designed by Lachlan Goudie, musical direction by Richard Bate...

Random observations from the English summer

Ms TN is going to come over all bloggish and type an actual diary entry, since I'm sure you are all bereft since TN hefted herself into ...

Brief notes on apocalypse

The Guardian book blog today runs a short piece in which I reflect on the New Writing Worlds symposium I attended last week. I was staying a...

Review: Scarlett O'Hara at the Crimson Parrot

Scarlett O’Hara at the Crimson Parrot, by David Williamson, directed by Simon Phillips. Melbourne Theatre Company @ the Playhouse Theatre, V...

Theatre, poetry and stuff

The more perceptive among you (perhaps, given my endless complaints, even the terminally woolly-minded) will have noticed that Ms TN has bee...

Essay: Dan Spielman on Manna

Many of you will know that Dan Spielman is an actor, whose CV spans an impressive range of work. He began his theatrical career with the Kee...

Review: Yes

and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda...

A caution - and something on truthfulness

I know you must all be sick to death of the Henson debacle (I certainly am, and am looking forward to a break from Australia next week) but ...

Yes

I'm putting this up to buy time. Despite everything (and there's been a lot of that, even without the pitchfork brigade) Ms TN has b...

Bill Henson rated PG

This morning comes the news that the DPP has told NSW police that they don't have a case to prosecute Bill Henson for obscenity or posse...

Catching up

Some pointers to interesting stuff I've missed here recently. Firstly, and most importantly, La Mama put out a call for help last week. ...

Reality: what a concept

Ms TN and others have had many requests from people who would also like to put their names to the The Open Letter in Support of Bill Henson....

Naked censorship

Yesterday it was reported that police were investigating websites hosting Bill Henson's photographs. Aside from the grim humour of seein...

Review: Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon, by Peter Morgan, directed by Roger Hodgman. Designed by Richard Roberts, costumes by Judith Cobb, lighting by Matt Scott, compo...

The wash up

Daniel Schlusser pointed out last week that an illiterate idiot published in the Age was quoting William Blake in order to condemn Bill Hens...

Review: How To Disappear Completely

How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, by Fin Kennedy, directed by Paul King, Sound design by George Bisset. With Michael F Cahill,...

Briefly

This week has been a dead loss as far as what's loosely called "my life" is concerned. The phone's been running hot with t...

2020 Open Letter in Support of Bill Henson

I know it's been quiet on the blog the past couple of days. However, it has not been quiet at home: I've been putting together an Op...

On a less gloomy note

I forgot to mention, until reminded by my publisher this morning, that composer Andrée Greenwell's chamber outfit Villainelles last nigh...

Henson threatened with prosecution

Updates belowI am shocked and deeply disturbed to read this morning that photographer Bill Henson - one of Australia's most significant ...

Review: Through The Looking Glass

Through The Looking Glass, after Lewis Carroll. Libretto by Andrew Upton, composed by Alan John. Conducted by Richard Gill, directed by Mich...

Phew!

Good news on La Mama, who on Friday were facing what looked like an impossible task in order to buy their building - artistic director Liz J...

Interview: Fin Kennedy

Fin Kennedy is regularly dubbed one of the hottest new playwrights in Britain. And this week Melburnians get to see why - on Friday, Hoy Pol...

Navel gazing

A Sunday afternoon spent slowly ordering a chaotic house is always good therapy. As you know, Ms TN has been feeling a bit ragged lately. It...

$1.7 million to raise by Monday

Doing an Usher here - but the press release says everything. Just received from La Mama:One of Melbourne’s oldest and most fondly regarded t...

Bits and bobs

It's often hard to run down the arts angle on Federal Budgets. But in today's Australian, Corrie Perkin chases up arts reaction to T...

Review: A Soldier's Tale

The Soldier's Tale by Igor Stravinsky, adapted by Simon Stone, directed by Michael Robinson, conducted by Fabian Russell. Lighting desig...

What I've missed

Which, in the past week, has been almost everything. While I've been developing a painkiller habit you wouldn't believe, various sho...

Sick...

I just woke up from a dream in which I lived in an apartment with a huge hexagonal front room, each wall of which was a window. All the blin...

Indisposed

Ms TN has been dabbing her forehead with lavender water since Monday, attempting to mitigate what the redoubtable Miss Austen called "a...

Rattling the cage

I don't usually do memes, but this one is kind of fun. I've taken it from George Hunka over at Superfluities, and it runs like this:...

Bendall moves west

Chris Bendall, artistic director and co-founder of Theatre@Risk, today announced that he is pulling up sticks and moving to Perth to be AD o...

Review: Venus in Furs

Venus in Furs, by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, adapted by Neal Harvey, directed by Marcel Dorney. Design by Lucie Sprague, lighting design by ...

The culture wars continue

So yesterday the Malthouse launches what is, on first sight, its best balanced season yet, demonstrating diversity, depth and - addressing a...

Review: Ollie and the Minotaur

Ollie and the Minotaur, by Duncan Graham, directed by Sarah John. With Sarah Brokensha, Adriana Bonaccurso and Wendy Bos. floogle in associa...

Little Alison's Great Diary Disaster

Ms TN set some kind of record this week - I inadvertently managed to book myself into three separate shows on a single night. (Apologies to ...

Notes on The Serpent's Teeth

The Serpent's Teeth: Citizens and Soldiers, by Daniel Keene, directed by Pamela Rabe and Tim Maddock. Set design by Robert Cousins, cost...

Criticism...again

In today's Australian, art critic Sebastian Smee ponders whether criticism is at all defensible. And confesses that critics "are ho...

More on the 2020

Just back from Sydney, of which more in due course (once I plant a few trees to offset my carbon footprint, get some sleep and find my brain...

Review: Venus & Adonis

Venus & Adonis by William Shakespeare, directed by Marion Potts. Set and costumes by Anna Tregloan, lighting design by Paul Jackson, com...

The 2020 experience

Yesterday, I felt like Wil E. Coyote after he's been thumped by a giant hammer. That little flattened concertina shape was Ms TN, just b...

Green Room Awards

The Green Room Awards were announced on Sunday. I would have been there - I'm on the Theatre - Companies panel and had more than a passi...

Home from Oz

I'm back home, feeling like I've been through a mangle. I'm writing a report for tomorrow, so watch this space.

Review: Haneef: The Interrogation

Haneef: The Interrogation, by Graham Pitts, directed by Gorkem Acaroglu. Lighting design by Dori Bicchieri, set consultant Anna Cordingley. ...

Rush, rush, rush...

Ms TN is writing a review for tomorrow, organising various family things, sneezing (oh no!), answering emails and packing her bags for Canbe...

I'm always the last to know...

I've just been told that my play Samarkand, which was produced by the Red Shed in Adelaide just over a decade ago, was broadcast by ABC ...

Running up to 2020

It struck me with seismic force yesterday that the Australia 2020 Summit is this weekend. Well, at least it doesn't give me too much tim...

Gallery foray

On Thursday night, Linden Centre for Contemporary Art in St Kilda is opening its new exhibition, My Doubtful Mind, subtitled "Artists a...

Review: The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps, adapted by Patrick Barlow, from an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, directed by Maria Aitken. Designed by Pet...

Sunday morning at the MTC

What was Little Alison doing this morning? No, she wasn't lounging in bed being fed hot toast and tea. (Sadly, this never happens, but a...

Spamalot

Not my area really, but I wrote a piece about the closure of Spamalot for the Guardian theatre blog pages, which seems to be resulting in a ...

Round the sphere

It's been a while since I've done a round-up of interesting blog posts. Mea culpa: I've always said that the real point of blogg...

The 2020 wiki

As threatened/promised last week, I've made a wiki to clarify my own ideas and incorporate those of any readers who care to contribute. ...

Edinburgh's Australian invasion

Ms TN is a bit slow off the mark this week - blame the massive bundle of proofs that thumped on my doormat yesterday, distracting me from th...

Review: The Winterling, The Ghosts of Ricketts Hill

The Winterling by Jez Butterworth, directed by Andrew Gray. Set design by Peter Mumford, lighting design by Stelios Karagiannis, costumes by...

Summitry

I'm afraid I'm going to talk about me, so I can push me out of the way and get on with some proper work. I have an excuse: last week...

I read it in the newspaper...

...so it must be true. Your faithful blogger is, it seems, off to the 2020 Summit in Canberra next month to debate future Australian arts po...

La Mama for sale

Our favourite shirt factory, La Mama, is up for sale. But those who fear that this might mean the disappearance of one of Melbourne's ol...

The Met in downtown Carlton

So you were thinking you'd like to see the New York Metropolitan Opera, but you can't afford the (plane) ticket? Fear not, opera fie...

Review: Holding The Man

Holding The Man, adapted by Tommy Murphy from the book by Timothy Conigrave, directed by David Berthold. Set design by Brian Thomson, costum...

Review: Comedy Festival

Comedy Festival: Heard It On The Wireless: The Kransky Sisters, with Annie Lee, Christine Johnston and Carolyn Johns, Athenaeum Theatre (sea...

Advertisement for Myself

Today the excellent people at Ahadada Books have released my first venture into e-books, Torque. It is a selection of recent poetry, and is...

Vale Paul Scofield

Paul Scofield, 21 January 1922 – 19 March 2008. I was saddened today to hear of the death of this consummate actor. He eschewed the celebrit...

Review: Moving Target

Moving Target by Marius Von Mayenburg, translated by Maja Zade, directed by Benedict Andrews. Set by Robert Cousins, costumes by Fiona Cromb...

Review: Nightshift

Nightshift, by Phil Motherwell, directed by Phil Motherwell and Shiralee Hood. Lighting by Gabriel Townsend, projections by Ian De Grucy, ph...

The heat is on

It seems unfair that, after a week of writerly virtue - dogsbody stuff, filling in forms and painstakingly dotting tees and crossing eyes - ...

Brief hiatus

Although it's been quiet here on the blog, it doesn't mean that my study isn't humming with activity. To wit: my novel has lande...

Review: Love Song

Love Song by John Kolvenbach, directed by Craig Ilott. Designed by Nicholas Dare, lighting by Jon Buswell, composer Basil Hogios, a/v by Bri...

Tartuffe revisited

So many people I respect, privately and online, have differed with me on my review of Tartuffe (closing this Saturday at the Malthouse) that...

Review: Chekhov Re-Cut: Platonov

Chekhov Re-Cut: Platonov, by Anton Chekhov, adapted and directed by Simon Stone. Design by Evan Granger, lighting by Danny Pettingill, sound...

Shall I compare thee...?

Sunday afternoon, and back from a pleasant amble in the sunshine with the mutt before heading to an early session of The Hayloft Project...

Review: Rock'n'Roll

Rock’n’Roll by Tom Stoppard, directed by Simon Phillips. Designed by Stephen Curtis, costumes by Tracy Grant Lord, lighting by Matt Scott, A...

Review: Asylum

Asylum by Kit Lazaroo, directed by Jane Woollard. Design by Amanda Johnson, lighting design by Richard Vabre, sound design by Peter Farnan. ...

Hamlet, cigarettes, that kind of thing

It's been a busy week. Not only have I been fending off the blunt pikes and grammatical shambles of that Lilliputian literary intellect,...

Interview: Marius von Mayenburg

If you were looking for a model of a writer in the theatre, you could do worse than point to Marius von Mayenburg: playwright, translator an...

The Empire Strikes Back

That monstrous crrrritic Ms TN gets a bit of what's coming to her in Crikey today. My spies tell me that Peter Craven has gone for the t...

Review: Tartuffe

Tartuffe by Molière, adapted by Louise Fox, directed by Matthew Lutton. Companion artist Neil Armfield. Set and costumes by Anna Tregloan, l...

How theatre is saving the soul of Australian fillums

But does Australian film know this? Lately, TN - lynx-eyed in all things theatrical - has noticed that a number of theatre artists are quiet...

The intellectual critic

Three giants of American criticism - Eric Bentley, Robert Brustein and Stanley Kauffmann - got together last October at a place called, rath...

And on the national stage...

I am proud of Australia today.

Young people

One of my minor obsessions is the question: what about theatre for young people? Theatre for children and young adults is generally marginal...

Review: The Mercy Seat

The Mercy Seat by Neil LaBute, directed by Alex Papps. Designed by Peter Mumford, lighting design by Stelios Karagiannis, sound by Alex Papp...

A point to Facebook

Facebook has its drawbacks (bacn, anybody?) But it does have the Geoffrey Milne Appreciation Society, which I stumbled across this afternoon...

"We will do some remarkable things"

In a move that confirms its ambition and vision, the Victorian College of the Arts has appointed Melbourne Festival artistic director Kristy...

On Joanna Murray-Smith

The Australian asked me to write a feature on playwright Joanna Murray-Smith for today's paper. So I did.

From the news desk

This weekend the National Play Festival kicks off in Brisbane. Under the aegis of PlayWriting Australia, the national body that has absorbed...

Housekeeping

I dug out the dusters and polishers and have finally updated that theatrical blogroll. A few new names, including hopeful indications that b...

Review: This Is Good Advice

This Is Good Advice: This Is A Chair by Caryl Churchill, Advice to Iraqi Women by Martin Crimp, directed by Lauren Barnes. Sound design by R...

Accessing my inner Grinch

I see that the Sydney Festival has been generally greeted with hosannas, palm leaves and so on, with only a few grumpy souls daring to swim ...

Promises, promises

A helpful reader pointed out recently that my blogroll has an outdated link (ie, George Hunka can be found at Superfluities Redux these days...

Review: Sweeney Todd

Yesterday we co-ordinated the family's complex social schedules and entrained to our favourite cinema, the Sun Theatre in Yarraville (ch...

Women artists

Germaine Greer, bless her, had a go at exhibitionist and narcissistic women artists the other day. My response, under the somewhat smartarse...

The Bulletin

Back again. That didn't take so long, after all - nothing that a slick new computer couldn't fix. Thank you to the Germans, who subs...

Black is the new black

This morning I turned on my computer and it delivered me a black screen. I have been speaking nicely to it, but it seems to have suffered so...

What branches grow out of this stony rubbish?

It used to be a Melbourne tradition to send reporters down to incoming ships at the docks and ask bewildered visitors what they thought of o...

Midsumma madness

Occasionally nice people say to me: I don't know how you do it. The answer is that, sometimes, I can't. Your indefatigable blogger d...

Review: The Season at Sarsaparilla

The Season at Sarsaparilla by Patrick White, directed by Benedict Andrews. Design by Robert Cousins, costumes by Alice Babidge, lighting by ...

Kantor withdraws from Tartuffe

News just in from the Malthouse: artistic director Michael Kantor has been forced to withdraw from directing the upcoming show Tartuffe, due...

Sustaining the arts

Currency House has published another must-have Platform Paper: a lucid and fascinating examination of the vexed question of arts funding. A ...

Review: Don Juan in Soho

Don Juan in Soho by Patrick Marber, directed by Peter Evans. Set and costumes by Fiona Crombie, lighting by Matt Scott, sound by David Franz...

Phew, wot a scorcher

...as they used to say in the UK Sun when the temperature nudged over 25 degrees: a cue for white English people to throw off their shirts a...

Drama, theatre and other arguments

TN takes issue with Edward Bond in today's Guardian theatre blog, thereby sparking a bit of argy bargy. Underneath, of course, is a seri...

Blogging the Sydney Fest

While Melbourne slumbers in its theatre down-time, Sydney has got out its gladrags for the Sydney Festival. And our blogger colleague Nichol...

The Great Wall of Books

Generalising... we could infer that all forms have their virtue in themselves and not in any conjectural "content". This would con...

Waking up

By golly, it's next year. Ms TN has been hiding in her burrow like the shy marsupial she really is, and it was even nicer than she expec...