Category Archives: theatre

The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table @ Cremorne Theatre, QPAC 15th October 2010 – Theatre Review

  Review: Pepa Wolfe

It was a wet, windy night in Brisbane for the opening of Wesley Enoch’s The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table, directed by and starring Leah Purcell. Produced by the independent indigenous company Bungabura Productions and presented by QPAC, this is the story of Opening Night. It goes something like this.

The Cremorne had been transformed (the stage removed so that some of the audience was sitting amongst the set) into the simple dining room of a house on Stradbroke Island, sand strewn on the ground, with the backdrop arranged in pieces, working both as a broken barrier to the outside world and an obscure window into the past, the faces of time gone by etched into its panels. At its centre sat the table, Cookie’s Table.

Originally Cookie’s birth tree, it was cut down by the white man and turned into a table that was eventually passed down through four generations. This night the audience learnt the history of the table; its meaning, its power. Its mystery unravelling as estranged mother and son, Annie and Nathan, argued over its ownership, and in doing so challenged the meaning of family and the elusive nature of the truth.
Continue reading The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table @ Cremorne Theatre, QPAC 15th October 2010 – Theatre Review

Dreaming Up The Vision: Interview with Leah Purcell, 11th October 2010 – LifeMusicMedia Interviews

Dreaming Up The Vision

Actor/Director Leah Purcell talks to Life Music Media about character, coming home, and the joy of performing in The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table.

In 2008 actress Leah Purcell was honoured with Australian theatre’s highest recognition the Helpmann Award (Australia’s version of the Tony Award) for her role in Wesley Enoch’s The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table. Produced in Sydney as a Hothouse Theatre/Griffin Theatre Company production and directed by Marion Potts, the play was critically acclaimed, making its mark as an important piece of contemporary Australian theatre. Now a new production, presented by QPAC and staged by Purcell’s Bungabura Productions, brings this quintessentially Queensland story home.

While deep into the plays rehearsal period, the actress, who is also directing this version, took time to answer some questions for Pepa Wolfe.

What is the play about?
Well there’re two story lines. There’s the history of the table – it was my Great-great Grandmother’s birth tree. When settlement happened on this island they cut down that birth tree and turned it into a table. As a little girl she followed the table and got a job as a cook in the house where the table ended up. And throughout the lifetimes the table has been passed down…

…To the present day story about my character Annie and her estranged son Nathan. They’ve been estranged for 25 years. She had him when she was 13 and she left because of the talk around the incident where she fell pregnant, and the lies around that. [Annie’s] mother Faith passes away, which brings Nathan and Annie back together. The surface story is to argue and discuss who gets the table, but though that discussion we learn more about each individual character.
Continue reading Dreaming Up The Vision: Interview with Leah Purcell, 11th October 2010 – LifeMusicMedia Interviews

The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table @ QPAC, Brisbane 14-30 October 2010


A powerful play about family and culture and the ways in which storytelling binds people together” – The Australian

Purcell delivers a startlingly powerful performance” – Daily Telegraph

Award-winning Queensland actor and director Leah Purcell (Box the Pony, King Lear, Black Chicks Talking) will direct and star in Bungabura Production’s new presentation of Wesley Enoch’s powerful drama The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table at Queensland Performing Arts Centre’s (QPAC) Cremorne Theatre from 14 – 30 October 2010.

This powerful family saga spans four generations and is a moving testament to culture lived, lost and found and the strength of a family adapting and gathering together.

First produced by Griffin and Hothouse Theatre Company, this new production of The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table offers a compelling theatre experience that encapsulates themes of ownership, heritage, culture and sexuality.

QPAC Chief Executive John Kotzas said that QPAC is very pleased to be presenting this work because of its cultural significance for Queensland and the Centre’s longstanding relationship with Bungabura Productions.

The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table is an immensely important piece of theatre –a story about families that transcends cultures,” said Kotzas.

In the 1870s a girl is born under a tree, which is cut down to become a kitchen table. Generations later, a young man and his mother fight for ownership of the table.

Winner of Patrick White Playwrights Award 2005 and short listed for both the New South Wales and Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table was written by renowned Queensland-born director and playwright, Wesley Enoch, who was recently appointed as the new Artistic Director of Queensland Theatre Company.

Wesley Enoch said the Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table has a mix between a strong naturalistic narrative of connection and a long imaginative storytelling about family and heritage. I was trying to write a piece about the emotional power of stories to bind a family together through hardship and adversity. Leah Purcell is one of the country’s best actors and she has created a character in a way that goes beyond what I could imagine as a writer,” said Enoch.

Director and lead actor Leah Purcell, whose portrayal of Annie has been described by reviewers as startlingly powerful, received a Helpmann Award for Best Actress in a Play in 2008.

“I am very proud of winning a Helpmann Award because I worked extremely hard to bring Annie to life, but being conscious of not making her character a cliché.

“This play is a universal story for all. It’s gutsy, it packs a punch or two, it’s laugh-out loud funny and takes you on an emotional journey as Annie and Nathan re-connect from being estranged for many years,” said Purcell.

“The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table is a great yarn and a theatre experience worth seeing, whether you are a regular to the Arts or if you are experiencing theatre for the first time, this is something worth seeing,” she said.

QPAC presents
Wesley Enoch’s
THE STORY OF THE MIRACLES AT COOKIE’S TABLE
A Bungabura Production
Starring and directed by Leah Purcell

Winner Patrick White Playwrights Award 2005
Winner Helpmann Award Best Actress in a Play 2008

WHEN 14 to 30 October
WHERE
Cremorne Theatre, QPAC, Cultural Centre, South Bank
TICKETS*
Adult $49 Concession $39
Matinees – Adult $39/Concession $29
Schools $18
BOOKINGS 136 246 or www.qpac.com.au

*Ticket price includes GST and Booking Fee. Please note transaction fees may apply

Please note this performance contains strong language.


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Danza Contemporanea De Cuba @ The Playhouse (Brisbane Festival), 15th September 2010 – Live Review


[Image courtesy Brisbane Festival]
  Review: Lana Harris

Young and old wait in the shadows for the outsiders. Excited and unsure about what to expect from these strangers, from this contemporary dance troupe from the other side of the world, the other side of governance. Their entrance: a few members trickle onto the stage, in silence and unadorned.

Continue reading Danza Contemporanea De Cuba @ The Playhouse (Brisbane Festival), 15th September 2010 – Live Review

Polarity @ The Judith Wright Centre, Brisbane 13th September 2010 – Live Review

Review: Lana Harris

  The performance starts in enmeshed innocence, dancer wrapped around dancer, cheek to cheek, limb to limb, ebbing and flowing into one another. Behind these demonstrations of closeness sits a man alone in a chair. Far away from him is a woman in a lounge room setting – flickering lamp, thick rug, and a lonely expression. They both ignore the blatant yet playful seduction occurring in front of them. The dancers too, are oblivious to these others: wrapped up in the intensity of their unfolding romance, their focus remains themselves and their explorations. There is no question we are watching the beginnings of love.

Continue reading Polarity @ The Judith Wright Centre, Brisbane 13th September 2010 – Live Review

Sylvia by A.R. Gurney – Brisbane Arts Theatre, 11th September 2010 – Live Review

Review: Pepa Wolfe

  Sylvia By A.R. Gurney
Directed by David Bell

With: Karla Deane, Michael Civitano, Natasha Kapper, Jill Brocklebank, Kate Hawkins.

There was a decidedly pleasant mood at the Brisbane Arts Theatre on Saturday, as people gathered for the opening night performance of A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia. Promoted as a comedy about the relationship between Man and “Man’s best friend”, the play’s title character is in fact a dog – a precocious little mut, played by Karla Deane.

Continue reading Sylvia by A.R. Gurney – Brisbane Arts Theatre, 11th September 2010 – Live Review

Betrayal @ The Cremorne Theatre, Brisbane 10th September 2010 – Live Review


[Image courtesy Queensland Theatre Company]
  Review: Lana Harris

Silence, with its lack of apparent weightiness, is often the hiding place for what we don’t want to acknowledge. Guilt, fear and secrets hide in silence, and so it is fitting that silence plays a pivotal role in a tale which features these elements of duplicity.

Presented by the Queensland Theatre Company, Betrayal is Harold Pinter’s tale of a love triangle. The narrative reveals itself through scenes played out in a stream opposite to the usual: the end at the beginning, flowing through to the beginning at the end. Emma (Sibylla Budd) is married to Robert (Hugh Parker) but commits to an affair with Jerry (Paul Bishop), who is also Robert’s best friend. Emma’s betrayal of her husband is not the only disloyalty. At various points, each pair are pitted against the third person and in doing so, betray not just the others but themselves too.

While on the surface it reads like a tabloid scandal or a soap opera plot, Pinter’s treatment of this uncomfortable subject is both poignant and powerful. We are invited into intimate pivotal moments, witnesses to calculated weavings of pretended innocence and voyeurs of collapsing secrets, the awkward truth bursting illusions. The strength of the acting in these scenes forces the audience to forge emotional responses to these events – responses which seep out as nervous laughter or a sick feeling in the stomach. Parker, in particular, plays his character well, demonstrating a raw and believable portrayal of the cuckold’s agony coupled with a darkly amusing resilience.

Pinter leaves the why of affairs largely untouched, with no hints of moralising. Betrayal is more a sign-posted journey through the features of love, both illicit and sanctioned. Apparently, the play has echoes of Pinter’s own life in it (he was ‘Jerry’) and so it was with first hand experience that Pinter has clearly depicted the chase for devotion and satisfaction.

A great tension soaks Betrayal, with what’s not said often meaning just as much as what is uttered. It is in these moments that the silence of the theatre becomes the most important player on the stage. Realisations occur and each person in the room is aware of the silent roar of intense feeling. At such moments, it was so quiet you could hear the truth sink in. Betrayal’s surreptitiousness proves riveting.

Review: Lana Harris

Show: Betrayal
Venue: Cremorne Theatre, QPAC
Date: 10th September 2010


Related:
Betrayal By Harold Pinter @ Cremorne Theatre, Brisbane – 6 Sept-9 Oct 2010 – Press Release



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Sutra @ The Playhouse (Brisbane Festival), 8th September 2010 – Live Review

Review: Lana Harris

[Image courtesy Brisbane Festival – Photo Credit: Hugo Glendinning]

Bodies twirling through the air, gravity defying leaps and rod straight limbs in perfect turns: the Shaolin monks have come to town. Part of a new contemporary dance performance, their fighting skills are being used to story tell and entertain in another’s vision.

Artist Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is the man who has married the martial with the contemporary, travelling to China to live with and learn from the monks. His involvement in the temple life must have been deep and overwhelmingly positive: not only has Cherkaoui managed to capture the monks centuries old, tradition honed skills and use them effectively in a modern, western performance style, he convinced them to leave their Buddhist temple and to perform as part of the Brisbane Festival.
Continue reading Sutra @ The Playhouse (Brisbane Festival), 8th September 2010 – Live Review

Gwen in Purgatory @ Roundhouse Theatre, Brisbane 30 Sept-24 Oct 2010

  “I’ve used the oven manual for the air conditioner and I’m roasting myself alive!”

Tommy Murphy is one of Australia’s most impressive playwrights: canny, dangerous and very funny. His plays include Holding the Man, one of the great success stories of recent Australian theatre with a very successful season in London’s West End earlier this year.

We’re thrilled to be co-producing his terrific new play with the legendary Company B Belvoir, directed by Australia’s finest director, Neil Armfield. Neil is fresh from his Broadway triumph with Exit the King, which starred Queensland’s Geoffrey Rush.

Gwen is 90. She woke up to discover that purgatory is sitting in a new house in a new subdivision, trying to work out if the remote in her hand operates the TV, the air-con or the fan-forced oven. As she muddles her way through the baffling technology, her family gathers around to battle over what’s going to happen next. Father Ezekiel is on his way to bless the house, so things are looking up…

“Full of laughs but also extremely emotional, Gwen In Purgatory is the best play to hit a Sydney stage this year.” The Daily Telegraph

“9/10…Melissa Jaffer is hilarious as Gwen, a feisty senior citizen with selective hearing and prone to misunderstandings, both real and deliberate. The comedy is truly Australian, pitched close to vintage ABC sitcom Mother and Son…Highly recommended” Sun-Herald

“Gwen is the story, I suspect, of every family. Or is it just mine?…Funny, very funny…I can’t think of another playwright who’s a keener, more insightful observer of Australian suburban life, let alone one who can document it so redolently…Gwen In Purgatory is a play for and about all of us. It is warm, funny, sad, tragic, poignant, moving and unsettling. Just like our lives. Life on the page, or stage, doesn’t get any better than this. This is the (very) real deal. A+” – Curtain Call

“Neil Armfield’s production is just about perfect, and exceptionally well cast. Melissa Jaffer combines radiance and dodderiness as Gwen. The bemused and homesick Nigerian priest Ezekiel (Pacharo Mzembe) and Gwen’s knockabout grandson, Daniel (Nathaniel Dean), are warmly drawn. Grant Dodwell is spot-on appalling as Gwen’s son, Laurie, and Sue Ingleton exhibits brilliant timing as the self-flagellating Peg.” Sydney Morning Herald

Production Credits
Director | Neil Armfield
Set Designer | Stephen Curtis
Costume Designer | Bruce McKinven
Lighting Designer | David Walters
Sound Designer | Paul Charlier
Assistant Director | Cristabel Sved

With | Grant Dodwell, Nathaniel Dean, Sue Ingleton, Melissa Jaffer and Pacharo Mzembe

Venue
Roundhouse Theatre, 6 – 8 Musk Avenue,
Kelvin Grove Urban Village

PERFORMANCE DATES
Preview 29 September
Opening Night 30 September
Season 30 September – 24 October
After Show Discussion Night 8 October

PERFORMANCE TIMES
Tuesday – Wednesday 6.30pm
Thursday – Saturday 7.30pm
Sunday 5pm
Matinees 11am 5, 12 & 19 October
2pm Saturday 23 October

DURATION
1 hour 45 mins, no interval

TICKETS
Preview $25
Opening Night $63 (includes VIP party)
Full Price $46
Concession $39
30 years and under $26
Group discounts $40 for 5+ (excludes group booking fee)

Phone bookings (07) 3007 8600

For Full details, visit La Boite Theatre Company

Cantina @ The Spiegeltent (Brisbane Festival) 5th September 2010 – Live Review

Review: Lana Harris

[Image courtesy Brisbane Festival]

Have you heard the one about the Spiegeltent? A girl and a guy walk into this travelling bar – a pointy topped sphere shaped by mirrors, wood and glass. Golden poles, blood red velvet curtains swooping overhead, low lighting and dancing shadows. Smoky. Drinks service on the curve, booths hugging the circumference. A big-top boudoir with an audience.

The girl and the guy start out cautious in this ringmaster’s playground. They clamber carefully onto the high wire – wobble and steady, wobble and steady. She wears a pair of lasciviously red heels as she teeters. The shoes return sporadically throughout the acts, as do the scene setting ukulele and tinkling pianola. Music through out invokes alternately past, present and future – offered in no particular order. Subject to whims and acrobatics, time periods depart and return often.
Continue reading Cantina @ The Spiegeltent (Brisbane Festival) 5th September 2010 – Live Review

Sylvia – at the Brisbane Arts Theatre from 11th September 2010

Sylvia By A.R. Gurney

  Greg, middle-aged and middle-class, returns to his Upper West Side apartment in the late afternoon accompanied by Sylvia, a beautiful, frisky young blonde he has just picked up in the park. Greg sits in his favourite chair, worried about how Kate, his wife, is going to respond to Sylvia.

Sylvia doesn’t make things easy. Too excited to settle down, she moves around the room checking out the furniture. She turns to Greg. She obediently collapses onto the floor, resting her chin on his knee, while staring up at him with blind adoration. What man could resist?

A street-smart mixture of Lab and Poodle, Sylvia becomes a major bone of contention between husband and wife.

Continue reading Sylvia – at the Brisbane Arts Theatre from 11th September 2010

Betrayal By Harold Pinter @ Cremorne Theatre, Brisbane – 6 Sept-9 Oct 2010

  Betrayal – By Harold Pinter

Overview:

Could you keep an affair secret for ten years? Would you start an affair if you knew how it would end?

Harold Pinter’s Betrayal explores these questions and more as it shows a passionate love affair told in reverse, starring Paul Bishop, Sibylla Budd and Hugh Parker.

Robert and Jerry share many things – they work in publishing, have long lunches together and are both in love with Robert’s wife Emma.

Continue reading Betrayal By Harold Pinter @ Cremorne Theatre, Brisbane – 6 Sept-9 Oct 2010

Jesus Christ Superstar @ Playhouse Theatre, 20th August 2010 – Live Review

Review: Lana Harris

Rocking great guitar riffs fill the sold out venue, slow notes trembling across the grey walls of a ruined cathedral set, preparing the audience to receive the voice of Tod Strike. As Judas, he opens the narrative by launching into ‘Heaven on Their Minds’, a song which allows Strike to demonstrate a truly commanding voice and worthy of one of the lead roles in this production.

  This reimagining of the original production of Jesus Christ Superstar (first performed in 1971) has a pared back, post apocalyptic set that doesn’t change, and puts the focus on the singing, as does the score – which tells the whole narrative by using more than 20 songs to move the story forward. Not a single piece of dialogue is presented without a backing melody. The basic storyline is easy to follow – easier if you’re familiar with the story of Jesus, because even though this is a post apocalyptic version of a musical first performed in the seventies based on an interpretation of a book written centuries ago, the plot is still the basic biblical storyline of Jesus gets famous, Jesus is betrayed by jealous best friend, Jesus is crucified as a result of the backstabber.

The post apocalyptic setting of this tale makes it easy to draw parallels between this and the lives of modern day celebrities. The scenes where the supporting cast forms a mosh pit as Jesus sings boost the resemblance.

Continue reading Jesus Christ Superstar @ Playhouse Theatre, 20th August 2010 – Live Review

David Campbell – The Broadway Show @ Concert Hall, QPAC, Brisbane 7th August 2010 – Show Review

Review: Lauren Sherritt

Click image to view photo gallery

[Photos: Charlyn Cameron]
  There are some musicians who blow us away with their musical talent and prowess, and there are some who whisk us along on a journey of high entertainment and fun. In a live show, David Campbell has a rare and optimum marriage of both features. His showmanship is second to none, his voice stunning and his persona endearing, making it a treat to watch him perform.

Campbell’s QPAC appearance on Saturday the 7th of August in ‘The Broadway Show’ began with an old favourite and ended with a well deserved standing ovation. The full orchestra, conducted by Guy Simpson, were positioned on stage as the audience filed in, and it wasn’t until the Concert Hall was darkened and the orchestra playing that Campbell himself appeared for a rousing rendition of “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ ”. With the show to promote his new CD, titled On Broadway, Campbell performed nearly every track from the album and a few more, and it was clear that he was overjoyed to share each of the eighteen songs he performed with the audience.
Continue reading David Campbell – The Broadway Show @ Concert Hall, QPAC, Brisbane 7th August 2010 – Show Review

David Campbell – The Broadway Show @ Concert Hall, QPAC, Brisbane 7th August 2010 – Photo Gallery

Photographer: Charlyn Cameron

[Photos: Charlyn Cameron]

Venue: Concert Hall, QPAC, South Bank – Brisbane
Date: 7th August 2010

Continue reading David Campbell – The Broadway Show @ Concert Hall, QPAC, Brisbane 7th August 2010 – Photo Gallery