My 1953 edition of Webster’s Dictionary provides this definition of diplomacy: “dexterity; skill; tact; shrewdness in managing affairs of any kind”. And these are exactly the qualities which writer Cyril Gély has so cleverly enshrined in his masterpiece play Diplomacy. Originally written in French, the translation and adapted version by Julie Rose I’m sure has…
As we take our seat, we are presented with three different actors, all dancing in thought, bouncing off each other and also off their surrounds. See You Next Tuesday will engage your latent tennis watching skills as the actors playing 17 year-old Evie talk all over each other, picking up on each other’s sentences (being…
Apparently, Joseph Stalin was an enthusiastic reader and loved the theatre. Of course, he was also acutely paranoid and one of the most evil dictators in history. In Collaborators, writer John Hodge portrays an almost-likable Stalin (or ‘JS’ as he was affectionately known by the secret police) as a contrast to the monster he is…
Mayhem abounds in Travesties. Set in Zurich in 1917, the play follows a British consular official, Henry Carr, who locks horns with a Dadaist, Tristan Tzara. Dadaism is an artistic movement that started around the First World War, meant to ridicule the meaninglessness of the modern world. Carr also falls for Cecily, a librarian with…
Prima Facie is a one-person play by Suzie Miller. It won the Griffin Award for Best Play in 2018. Tessa is a feisty young woman from a working-class background who finds her talent in the practice of law. In the journey of this play Tessa experiences what it is to be on both sides of…
A driven, high achieving woman melts down when two relationships go awry in Drive. Writer Rebecca Meston was inspired by the true story of former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak. You might remember Nowak as the person who drove non-stop for 14 hours to confront her ex-lover’s new partner. Wearing a disguise, she also a knife,…
In Escaped Alone, society as we know it has fallen apart. Survivors are few. Four older women who are among the lucky ones reflect on times past over several summers … as the years run into one another. Vi (Margaret Mills) went to jail for six years after killing her husband. Sally (Caroline Lee) has…
According to American novelist Flannery O’Connor, “the beginning of human knowledge is through the senses”. This underpinning of human perception is at the core of playwright Elise Grieg’s world premiere work Magpie; its all-encompassing description offers theatre-goers immersion into the experience of a Brisbane summer, where thunderstorms threaten for longer than they onslaught and nothing…
– Come from Away – Only at the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne from 3 July 2019 We have 2 double passes thanks for the preview performance of Come from Away on Tuesday, 9 July 2019 at 7 pm. *Please make sure before you enter that you will be 1) in Melbourne, and 2) available to…
If you haven’t heard of Kill Climate Deniers you probably should have. The hyperbolically titled play’s controversial take on the contentious climate change debate in Australia saw it hit the headlines in 2014 when its playwright David Finnigan received $19 000 from Arts ACT to write a play exploring climate change and Australian politics. The…
