tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72029062013-05-11T02:58:08.872+10:00Independent theatre criticism from Alison CroggonAlison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comBlogger1106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-82484120974333306722012-12-14T13:04:00.000+11:002013-03-23T08:45:27.873+11:00

Theatre Notes will remain here as an archive. The blog is fully searchable using the search box to the right, and there are browsable lists of all reviews since 2004 and of notable interviews and essays. Update, February 2013: After receiving an offer I couldn't refuse, I am now Performance Critic At Large (they said it) for ABC Arts Online. I'll be writing monthly reviews/essays throughout the

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-78479936503510808422012-11-28T12:27:00.000+11:002012-11-28T12:29:53.409+11:00

Dear Readers As some of you will already know, I've decided to close down Theatre Notes. It's a decision that's been staring me in the face for a while now, and it's fair to say that I've been in furious denial for months. Having to finish up here makes me more sad than I can say. Making TN has been more rewarding than I ever imagined when I idly thought, back in 2004, that it might be an

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com60tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-15052215967651847862012-11-25T16:05:00.000+11:002012-11-26T12:29:24.329+11:00

Warning: here be spoilers From medium to medium, the real is volatilized, becoming an allegory of death. But it is also, in a sense, reinforced through its own destruction. It becomes reality for its own sake, the fetishism of the lost object: no longer the object of representation, but the ecstasy of denial and of its own ritual extermination: the hyperreal....  Symbolic Exchange and Death,

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-14486293120884601792012-11-22T15:21:00.001+11:002012-11-22T17:04:58.544+11:00

Last week I saw two adventures in theatrical poetry. Malthouse Theatre literally brought poetry into the theatre with Jane Montgomery Griffiths's and Marion Potts' theatricalisation of Dorothy Porter's poem-novel, Wild Surmise. Meanwhile, in the Collingwood Underground Carpark, young independent director Sapidah Kian gave us the Australian premiere of I Am The Wind, a recent work by one of the

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-4783720595122086952012-10-31T10:40:00.000+11:002012-10-31T10:40:10.175+11:00

Despite Melbourne's uncertain spring, Ms TN had a most excellent adventure at the 2012 Melbourne Festival, Brett Sheehy's last before he takes up the reins as AD of the Melbourne Theatre Company. Sheehy opted to go out with a bang: general agreement dubbed this his best festival so far. An important part of this success was the Festival Hub by Princes Bridge, which provided the social heart an

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-9035497568394612032012-10-28T10:34:00.000+11:002012-10-28T10:45:53.238+11:00

Melbourne Festival Diary #10 After three weeks of full-on performance, Dance Teritories was a refreshing return to the basics: a stage, a performer, an audience. Dance Territories presented four works over two double bills, curated from both local and international artists. Program 1 was Perrine Valli's Ma Cabane au Canada & Série and Sandra Parker's Transit. For my last night out for the

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-83826837278096064152012-10-26T13:52:00.001+11:002012-10-26T17:28:31.522+11:00

Melbourne Festival Diary #9 We're heading towards the end of the festival, which closes on Saturday, and Ms TN is feeling, truth be told, rather ragged. On the one hand, devoting myself to a single activity rather than the several which usually occupy me is something of a holiday (although the copyedit for the US edition of Black Spring is sitting on my desk, looking reproachful and reminding me

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-12193527696800868982012-10-23T14:05:00.000+11:002012-10-24T16:10:51.579+11:00

Melbourne Festival Diary #8 I woke the morning after seeing the Schaubühne Berlin's production of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People seething with a burning, undirected anger. I don't know what I had been dreaming: but I think this play named something accurately enough to blow those embers - of disillusion, impotence, political alienation, whatever - into a white heat. Some flame in me leapt

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-26944908849267948232012-10-22T14:21:00.000+11:002012-10-22T14:39:44.954+11:00

Festival Diary #7 Chamber Made Opera's innovative series of Living Room Operas - small-scale opera performances commissioned as site-specific works and performed in private houses - has produced some of the more interesting work I've seen over the past few years. Works such as Daniel Schlusser's Ophelia Doesn't Live Here Any More and Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey's beautifully judged Dwelling

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-23254152205203033322012-10-21T14:22:00.000+11:002012-10-24T05:17:30.315+11:00

Melbourne Festival Diary #6 Even off the plan, the strongest aspect of the 2012 Melbourne Festival was always the dance. It's a feeling borne out in the performances I've seen: William Forsythe's I Don't Believe in Outer Space was the first knockout, and these three works  - Chunky Move's An Act of Now, Akram Khan's DESH and Lucy Guerin Inc's Weather - further demonstrate the vitality, reach and

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-74337781468031196932012-10-19T10:33:00.001+11:002012-10-19T11:03:46.129+11:00

Melbourne Festival Diary #5 Holding note: Sometimes I find that all that emerges from my fingertips is a sludge of meh. This can particularly happen when I've been knocked out by a work: all those responses just won't clarify into something coherent. I've been struggling for two hours now, and getting nowhere. So for the meantime: let me simply recommend that you see, if at all possible, Akram

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-86151519462494099412012-10-17T10:10:00.000+11:002012-10-18T14:04:32.295+11:00

Melbourne Festival Diary #4 Some notes on Orlando White. No colour, every colour; plenty and absence at once. The empty page awaiting inscription, the page which may be shredded or burned. The colour of milk, the colour of semen, the colour of fertility. The imaginary of European Empire, the sterile fictions of race, purity, virginity. The hymeneal bride, the deuil blanc of mediaeval mourning.

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-38607433527320691142012-10-14T12:55:00.000+11:002012-10-14T15:23:54.971+11:00

Melbourne Festival Diary #3 It may have only opened on Thursday, but the Melbourne Festival is now well into its stride. Aside from the Forsythe Dance Company, my highlight so far has been Orlando, a hallucinatory theatrical riff on Virginia Woolf's novel from independent Melbourne company The Rabble, which is at the Malthouse as part of its Helium season. Beautiful, obscene, wickedly funny,

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-86760047552872963262012-10-12T14:59:00.000+11:002012-10-12T14:59:24.604+11:00

Melbourne Festival Diary #2 I Don't Believe in Outer Space, Forsythe Dance Company; Never Did Me Any Harm, Force Majeure.   I used to say that I enjoyed seeing dance because it gave me a break from words. As I Don't Believe in Outer Space and Never Did Me Any Harm demonstrate, this is less and less the case. Language is now such a common dynamic in contemporary dance that wordless movement is

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-83499123352544927472012-10-11T16:03:00.000+11:002012-10-11T16:12:25.402+11:00

Festival Diary #1 The Melbourne Festival officially opens tonight, but a couple of pre-opening events have already tempted Ms TN out of her burrow. Over the past two nights, I've seen two contemporary dance works, Force Majeure's Never Did Me Any Harm and The Forsythe Company's I Don't Believe in Outer Space. Both are recommended: William Forsythe's work in particular is astounding. I'll be

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-21787773716590945452012-10-05T13:38:00.004+10:002012-10-05T13:38:59.862+10:00

Know someone who's made an outstanding contribution to the Australian performing arts? I thought so. You should be nominating them for the 2012 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards. Right now, as nominations close on November 9. The annual awards were created in 1984 by the Trustees of the Sidney Myer Fund to recognise outstanding achievements in dance, drama, comedy, music, opera, circus and

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-5596725091573400062012-09-22T08:43:00.000+10:002012-09-22T08:43:05.853+10:00

As we all know, three members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot were recently imprisoned after a farcical trial in which they were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. In response, English PEN's Writers at Risk is hosting Poems for Pussy Riot, initiated by writer and editor Sophie Mayer, to collect poems, translate them into Russian, and send them to the band as a

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-51668799955874353962012-09-16T12:11:00.000+10:002012-09-17T09:12:36.336+10:00

Okay, okay, I know I swore that I was writing no reviews for a month. But just this one, because it's important. I was completely unprepared for the emotional impact of watching Jenny Kemp's brilliant production of Top Girls. It was as if an abscess of grief and anger were lanced deep inside me: all the things I already know, that are reconfirmed in the media every day, in casual conversation

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-26573061714293174992012-09-13T13:22:00.000+10:002012-09-13T13:39:10.613+10:00

Dear everybody: as we all know, good intentions are the road to hell. And Ms TN is full of good intentions. I wrote them all out this morning, having cleared some space to catch up on the shows I've seen and not written about. And I realised I have to face the fact that I simply can't do everything I would like to: it's not really a question of time, but of mental energy. The truth is, as I have

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-24987021825673652322012-09-11T10:21:00.000+10:002012-09-11T10:21:31.618+10:00

'Tis the season for theatre launches, which gives Ms TN ample opportunity to exploit her genius for SNAFU. Recently my trigger finger gave the MTC's pr department conniptions by blithely tweeting their entire Neon season before its formal announcement. (Lucky you can delete tweets, huh?) The Malthouse wisely emailed the preview of its season with a big sign saying EMBARGO that even I couldn't

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-20938909961058963282012-09-05T09:59:00.000+10:002012-09-05T10:25:10.826+10:00

Regular readers will be chortling into their coffee to hear that Ms TN has been yet again ruefully contemplating her total inability to control any aspect of her writing life. Viz: yet again, or still, I am wallowing in the slough of overcommitment. (And that's even with putting Teh Novel aside for a couple of weeks to - cue hollow laughter - "clear the desk". Also, I got stuck.) I suspect that

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-89539705858725500752012-08-27T09:23:00.000+10:002012-08-27T09:37:48.170+10:00

A brief talk on the plays of Patrick White, which I delivered yesterday at the Melbourne Writers Festival as part of the event Remembering Patrick White. My fellow panelists were David Marr, Rodney Hall and Peter Craven, chaired by Sophie Cunningham. Readings by Benedict Hardie and Edwina Wren. Playwrights are a very particular breed of writer. Anyone who has read the plays of James Joyce or Leo

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-53436795207859026052012-08-24T09:59:00.000+10:002012-08-24T10:07:44.373+10:00

Brett Sheehy's first season as artistic director of the Melbourne Theatre Company was launched last night. It's fair to say that the 2013 program been rapturously received: it's the most imaginative MTC season that I remember. Miraculously, Sheehy has covered all bases: fans of David Williamson and Joanna Murray-Smith are well served, with new plays by both of them, Williamson's, notably, a play

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-2218966792182793402012-08-20T11:38:00.000+10:002012-08-20T11:39:13.289+10:00

It's that time of the year again, and I have a busy weekend coming up. If you want to stalk me at the Melbourne Writers Festival, here's the roadmap. I'm part of four sessions: two events around Patrick White, in one of which I am to talk about his plays (with readings of White's work from Benedict Hardie and Edwina Wren); another "everyone's a critic" session; and a panel on video games. I'm

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-74147660331881049292012-08-17T12:36:00.000+10:002012-08-17T14:58:16.457+10:00

There's a certain discomfort and sharpness, a sense of reaching beyond the limitations of merely making "good" theatre, that filled me with relief when I was watching On the Misconception of Oedipus. I realised that I've been missing this quality recently: a feeling that a work is jostling uneasily at the edges of form as its explores its ideas.  Devised by director Matthew Lutton, designer Zoe

Alison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com2