John Shand Posts

August 31, 2014 / Concert Reviews - Archive

State Theatre, August 25  Where instrumentalists have a device to hide behind, singers are naked. Fearing this, most of them wrap themselves in artifice and histrionics, or seek to impress with hellish shrieking and vowels mangled into unintelligibility. A precious few surmount the fear and relish a nakedness wherein lies…

August 30, 2014 / Features - Archive

When Anna Volska was offered a role in Campion Decent’s new play, Unholy Ghosts, she says she was terrified. The reason seems improbable, but in fact Volska, once such a regular, has not been seen on a stage for nearly 10 years. She even doubted her ability to memorise the…

August 28, 2014 / Theatre Reviews - Archive

Belvoir Downstairs, August 21  Director Adena Jacobs calls this “a meditation upon the myth of Oedipus Rex”. Not the Sophocles play of that name, you’ll note, but the myth that supplied Sophocles’ raw material. In a way she strips Oedipus of the trappings of his play, and re-mythologises him as…