I saw 14 live shows this year, including a one-hander at the tiny theatre just down the road, a couple of children’s shows in tents, some spectacular theatricality, some intense intimacy, classics, debuts, some tedium, and more than one thrilling success.
Best children’s show was Morgan James’ Pocket Sized Circus at the Sydney Fringe had his audience eating out of his hand. Among other splendours, he made quiet, direct contact with a crying child in the audience without interrupting the general hilarity.
The Emerging Artist and I gave top billing to Into the Woods ((James Lapine & Steven Sondheim 1987) at Belvoir Street Theatre, directed by Eamon Flack. I went fearing the worst as I’ve seen some disastrous productions of Sondheim shows, but I was thrilled by the stagecraft as much as by the ingenious rhyming in the songs.
Our runners up, bot at Nimrod Street, were:
For the Emerging Artist, Robyn Archer: An Australian Songbook, which surpassed all expectations.
For me, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita adapted for the stage and directed by Eamon Flack. We saw a preview night, and had the extra joy of an introduction by Eamon in which he said his seat up the back had been covered earlier that day with bits ot grey matter from all the last minute adjustments to the script. I knew nothing about the novel and went in expecting grim Soviet-era resistance rather than joy, mayhem and heroic nudity. I was inspired to verse.
Me fail? I fly! 