Theatre: A Streetcar Named Desire

Written by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Kate Cherry
Designed by Christina Smith
Sound designer and composer Ben Collins
With Ben D’Addario, Nathaniel Dean, Callum Fletcher, Luke Hewitt, Michael Loney, Rhoda Lopez, Jo Morris, Sigrid Thornton, Steve Turner, Alison van Reeken and Irma Woods

Black Swan State Theatre Company 
Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre
Extended to April 11

There’s no doubt about A Streetcar Named Desire. Its impact on the American stage and its cinema, and the consequences of its writing and performance are still with us 67 years after its debut.
Its tumultuous reception, the famous opening-night standing ovation, the huge critical and popular success that followed it, and the 1951 film version, suggest audiences were ready to see real life, its violence, its sexuality and the savagery with which it tears down anachronism, pretention and delusion, played as it is for what it is.
Which all makes Streetcar a tricky conveyance for its director and stars.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

By Tennessee Williams
Black Swan State Theatre Company and Queensland Theatre Company
Directed by Kate Cherry

Designed by Bruce McKinven

Featuring Cheree Cassidy, Tom O’Sullivan, John Stanton, Carol Burns, Caitlin Beresford-Ord, Hugh Parker, Damon Lockwood, Daniel Murphy and Gina Williams

Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre

Sept 10 – Oct 2, 2011

John Stanton and Carol Burns

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is an audacious, free-spirited American masterpiece given a clearly struck and handsome revival by director Kate Cherry in the centenary of its playwright’s birth. 

Its audacity lies in the almost complete elimination of plot and dramatic tension. The play takes place in real time in one room and, for almost all of its length, nothing consequential actually happens.

Even the one surprising thing that happens, Maggie’s startling announcement toward the play’s end, is unlikely to change these people or their lives, whether it is true or not.

Stripped of action and artifice, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a universal human drama of need and repulsion, love, hatred and, above all, lies and truth.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian