THE SYMBOLIC POWER of the waiting room pervades an understanding of life itself. It’s a turbulent mix of helplessness in the face of some greater force, conjoined with the complex energy of an end crookedly and precariously in sight. Just out of focus, and around the corner, as […]
IN A WORLD where theatre-making has been violently pared by budget, here is a hefty chunk of utter magic that cocks a snook at all of those restrictions. Don’t have more than one scene, they say. This one’s got many. Cut your cast down to monologue-status, they insist. […]
IT TAKES IMMENSE skill and maturity to know that the telling of a story filled with detail and drama, with interstices of horror and loss and replete with almost 60-year-old ghosts is done not with gimmicks and tricks, with big noise and flashing lights, but with an old […]
MALICIOUS GOSSIP, THE quest to squeeze your body into impossible Spanx and the need to slap sticky tape on your hairline in the name of fitting in, are just a couple of the indignities that women are brainwashed to comply with, in the world in which we live. […]
VICIOUSNESS IS OFT a convenient veil to wear in the face of extreme anguish. Playwright Simon Woods takes a rich and complex understanding of social values and their tipping points in his extraordinary play, Hansard. Coupled with incisive direction by Robert Whitehead and a give-and-take performance by Fiona […]
A SHOW WITH a gleaming singer in tight sparkly lamé and a fur boa, her memories of the hardships and joys of a life on stage, and an accompanist on piano, sticking to the world’s best standards is not a novel idea. Toss the inimitable Kate Normington into […]
AS THIS FILM begins to unfurl, there are moments, from a cinematographic perspective that will leave you with your mouth hanging open. Devastatingly beautiful washes of colour and light conveying men on horses and a community broken by discontent permeate this work like swathes of poetry. This film, […]
TRIBUTE TO VENTURA ROSENTHAL RESEARCHED BY MISHKA OLIVIER. NONA VENTURA ROSENTHAL, a brilliant musician and a true treasure to everyone who met her, gave a friendly and popular profile to the notoriously difficult-to-play harp. She succumbed to breast cancer, which she had battled since 2014, on 6 November […]
LIKE IT OR not, death is the final prognosis of all of us, and veteran performer Simon Fortin takes this on with a full-hearted foray in his stage work … Or not to be, drawing on both Shakespeare’s litany and his own considerable experiences. Everything tender and sharp, […]
WHAT DOES IT take for a pretty love song to morph into a universal standard or an absolutely adored cover? Does it have to do with how frequently the audience may get to hear the tune? Or perhaps it has to do with its presence on the musicals […]
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