Ian Dickson

Kindertransport (Darlinghurst Theatre Company)

ABR Arts • 04 August 2017

‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ William Faulkner’s much-quoted line from Requiem for a Nun (1951) could be the subtitle for Diane Samuels’s play Kindertransport, first performed in London by the Soho Theatre Company in 1993, which has just opened at the Eternity Playhouse, in Sydney. It is shocking to have to concede that with the many unaccompanied children who have been e ... (read more)

This Much Is True (Red Line Productions)

ABR Arts • 17 July 2017

Louis Nowra’s latest play, his first in ten years because apparently and appallingly no major company in Australia has asked him for one, is the third in his semi-autobiographical Lewis trilogy. In Summer of the Aliens (1992), the young Lewis, growing up in housing-commission Melbourne, has to find a way to come to terms with the unpredictable adults who surround him and to deal with his feeling ... (read more)

Cloud Nine (Sydney Theatre Company)

ABR Arts • 07 July 2017

Clive, a splendid chappie, has taken up the white man’s burden in darkest Africa and is attempting to bring some British order to the lesser breeds without the law, even though the ungrateful blighters are getting a bit restless. He’s accompanied by that jolly good stick of a wife of his, Betty, their little nippers, Edward and Victoria, his mother-in-law, Maud, a bit of a dragon if you ask me ... (read more)

The Bleeding Tree (Sydney Theatre Company)

ABR Arts • 14 March 2017

Three women are staring into space. They are dazed, in shock, not yet believing that what has just happened has actually occurred. Beneath them is the body of a man, husband and father, whom they have just murdered. So begins the wild, darkly lyrical nightmare ride that is Australian playwright Angus Cerini’s The Bleeding Tree, which won several 2016 Helpmann Awards, including Best Play and Best ... (read more)

Mark Colvin's Kidney (Belvoir St Theatre)

ABR Arts • 06 March 2017

The theatre has given us mutilation, Titus Andronicus comes to mind, and cannibalism in Thyestes and Sweeney Todd, but as far as I am aware there is no dramatic genre based on organ donorship. After Tommy Murphy’s Mark Colvin’s Kidney, this may well change. Murphy’s funny and moving play is built around a series of circumstances that would seem to have emerged from the imagination of an abs ... (read more)

Chimerica (Sydney Theatre Company)

ABR Arts • 06 March 2017

Lucy Kirkwood, the present darling of the British critics, is a playwright who is not afraid of tackling momentous subjects. Her most recent play, The Children (2016), is a post-nuclear apocalyptic chamber piece which explores the responsibility of the baby boomer generation to those who come after. Her new play, Mosquitoes, to be presented by the National Theatre in July 2017, apparently deals wi ... (read more)

Away (Sydney Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre)

ABR Arts • 24 February 2017

Away reached the dubious status of ‘Australian Classic’ in a remarkably short period of time. It has become so ubiquitous that I would hazard a guess that fully two thirds of the Australian audience for this production who are under thirty will have been involved with the play either as performers, audience, or students. In the keynote address (‘The Agony and the Agony’) at the National Pl ... (read more)

Theodora (Pinchgut Opera)

ABR Arts • 01 December 2016

‘The Jews will not come to it because it is a Christian story and the ladies will not come because it is a virtuous one.’ George Frideric Handel’s much-quoted explanation for the lack of success of Theodora, his penultimate oratorio, may or may not be accurate, but there is no doubt about its failure. After an original run of just three performances in 1750, it was briefly revived in 1755 an ... (read more)

Faith Healer (Belvoir St Theatre)

ABR Arts • 28 October 2016

Brian Friel’s play Faith Healer is now considered to be, if not his masterpiece Translations (1980) probably takes that distinction at least one of his most successful works, but it took a while before its sneakily subverted approach to truth and illusion was appreciated. Its 1979 Broadway première, directed by José Quintero and starring James Mason no less, lasted a mere twenty performances. ... (read more)

Twelfth Night (Belvoir St Theatre)

ABR Arts • 01 August 2016

In his introduction to the Folio Society edition of Twelfth Night, Peter Hall describes the play as a transitional work. Moving on from the light-heartedness of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in Twelfth Night Shakespeare mixes grief and cruelty in with the comedy. We are advancing towards the dark, complex world of Measure for Measure. Both Viola and Olivia are consumed with grief for the loss of thei ... (read more)