Theatre: Shrine

Whitney Richards

Tim Winton
Directed by Kate Cherry
Designed by Trent Suidgeest

With Paul Ashcroft, John Howard, Luke McMahon, Sarah McNeill, Will McNeill and Whitney Richards
Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre
August 31 – Sept 15, 2013

Shrine, the third of Tim Winton’s annual forays with Black Swan into writing for the stage, leaves unanswered the question posed by his earlier Rising Water (2011) and Signs of Life (2012).
There’s no doubting his quality as a writer, the impact of his language and his instinct for character. He also has a wonderful knack for the transcendent, especially when his characters find themselves alone and exposed to nature.
Is this, though, enough to make him a playwright? Is the poet in Winton also a songwriter?

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Signs of Life

Tim Winton

Directed by Kate Cherry

Designed by Zoe Atkinson

With Tom E. Lewis, Helen Morse, George Shevstov and Pauline Whyman

Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre

July 31 – August 18, 2012

George Shevstov and Helen Morse

In Tim Winton’s Signs of Life we are re-introduced to two of the central characters in his 2002 novel, Dirt Music; Georgiana Jutland (Helen Morse), whose escape from dress circle Perth, and then from the boss cocky fisherman she’d taken up with, and Luther Fox (George Shevstov) the craypot poacher and ne’er-do-well she absconds with and for.

The Moore River runs through the play like it does the property. It hasn’t rained for five years, and everything, the riverbed, the olive trees, the birds, the wild dogs and Georgie herself, are dry as bone dust. 

As we anxiously wait for soaking rain right here, right now, in Perth, it’s easy to empathise when a character says “I don’t think it will ever rain. This is it. The end.”

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Blueback

Terrapin Puppet Theatre

Adapted by Peta Murray

from the novel by Tim Winton

Directed by Philip Mitchell

Performed by Sarah Nelson and Michael Barlow

Spare Parts Puppet Theatre, Fremantle

Oct 1 – 15, 2011

Tim Winton’s Blueback is the story of three generations of the Jackson family, their home on the mythical Longboat Bay, its waters, reefs and the giant groper Abel Jackson befriends as a child.

Our unofficial state laureate is in very familiar waters here, and his short novel is given a sweet, emotional adaptation and supple, inventive staging by playwright Peta Murray and the Terrapin Puppet Theatre at Spare Parts in Fremantle.

I couldn’t imagine a better school holiday treat than a visit to the Maritime Museum, fish and chips down at the fishing boat harbour and a performance of this charming and insightful production.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Rising Water

Black Swan State Theatre Company
Written by Tim Winton

Music by Ian Grandage

Directed by Kate Cherry

Designed by Christina Smith

Featuring Alison White, Claire Lovering, Geoff Kelso, John Howard, Stuart Halutz and Kai Arbuckle and Callum Fletcher (alternating)

Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre

June 25 – July 17, 2011

Rising Water marks the arrival of the Heath Ledger Theatre, and Black Swan as its resident company. It’s a big-hearted entertainment with some striking assets, the most important of which hits you the moment you take your seat.

Christina Smith has done the play, and the theatre space, a great service with her set; three boats bobbing – actually bobbing ­– in their pens, with deep blue gleaming water below and a transmuting Indian Ocean sky above.

It’s brilliant to look at, and a perfect platform on which director Cate Cherry can manage the story and her cast. Significantly, it's the first design that solves the problems of visual focus in the space and makes the great curving wood surfaces of the auditorium look right at home.