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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 3 years, 11 months ago
Jonathan Biggins’ new show serves up Keating’s greatest hits, but never quite escapes its sketch show origins, says Ben Brooker
More than any other recent Labor leader, Paul Keating is most like the pro […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 4 years, 3 months ago
Angus Cerini’s The Bleeding Tree reveals the brutalising and disfiguring reality of male violence, says Ben Brooker
“History is full of people who just didn’t,” writes Anne Boyer in her essay “No”, whi […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 4 years, 6 months ago
‘This is not the comeback we were looking for’: Ben Brooker on STCSA’s Gaslight
In an ordinary year, the State Theatre Company of South Australia’s revival of Patrick Hamilton’s fusty old warhorse Gasligh […]
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BEN BROOKER commented on the post, Experiments in form 4 years, 9 months ago
A fair point, Samsara. After this article was published a few people implored me to look up the Public Theatre’s What Do We Need to Talk About? It was probably the most satisfying online theatre I’ve experienced so far – and only one hour long! But I think what it also got right (apart from a tight script and polished performances) was that it…[Read more]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 4 years, 9 months ago
Tiny Bricks’ As One demonstrates that live-streaming theatre is a whole new ballgame, says Ben Brooker
Note: spoilers within
I may as well start with a confession: I haven’t watched a lot of streamed the […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 4 years, 12 months ago
The shift to social isolation has been brutal. Ben Brooker wonders if embracing its strange absences might be a way through crisis
Between the 14th of February and the 15th of March I went to 28 live […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 5 years ago
The operatic adaptation of Lars von Triers’ film Breaking the Waves succeeds in ways the film fails, says Ben Brooker
Lars
von Trier’ Breaking the Waves (1996)was the work of an auteur
channeling a ( […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 5 years ago
An intimate remembrance, Aleppo: A Portrait of Absence centres the human cost of war, says Ben Brooker
Having
long-since disappeared from most Western news cycles, the interminable civil
war in Syria – n […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 5 years, 1 month ago
Independent
theatre faces huge challenges, but artists are fighting back. Ben Brooker looks
at RUMPUS, a co-operative venture in Adelaide about to enter its second yearGo to
the website of RUMPUS,
bedecked in […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 5 years, 6 months ago
Australian Dance Theatre’s North/South is a powerful evocation of climate dystopia and human resilience, says Ben Brooker
In the 20 years since succeeding Meryl Tankard as Artistic Director of Australian Dance […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 5 years, 8 months ago
‘A first-rate revival’: Ben Brooker on Kate Champion’s A View from the Bridge at Adelaide’s State Theatre Company
It’s hard to escape the feeling that there’s something unerringly modern, even prophetic, abo […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 5 years, 9 months ago
At this year’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Larissa McGowan and Zoë Coombs Marr reawaken cabaret’s underground charge, says Ben Brooker
Since when did cabaret become little more than a spectacle of people singing […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 6 years ago
An apocalypse that ends with a whimper: Ben Brooker on Hofesh Shechter’s Grand Finale
Since his 2007 breakthrough In Your Rooms, Israeli-born, London-based choreographer, dancer, and composer Hofesh Shechter has […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 6 years ago
‘Anything but tame’: Ben Brooker on Traverse Theatre’s Ulster American
In the final week of the Adelaide Festival I saw The Second Woman, the extraordinary durational performance in which 100 men perform the […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 6 years, 5 months ago
‘Perhaps we, like Rianto, await our own metamorphoses’: Ben Brooker on Rianto’s Medium at Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art in Sydney
Among its various definitions of “medium”, the Oxford dictionary giv […]
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BEN BROOKER wrote a new post 6 years, 6 months ago
The recent restructure of Arts South Australia and budget cuts of $31m have thrown the state’s arts sector into chaos. Ben Brooker reports
“From even the greatest of horrors,” wrote H.P. Lovecraft in The Shu […]
A well considered essay Ben. One thing I would say is don’t be so quick to blame the medium. I have seen plenty of plays around 2 hours in length which have made me want to gnaw off my own leg rather than have to stay to the very end… 😉
A fair point, Samsara. After this article was published a few people implored me to look up the Public Theatre’s What Do We Need to Talk About? It was probably the most satisfying online theatre I’ve experienced so far – and only one hour long! But I think what it also got right (apart from a tight script and polished performances) was that it managed to establish a feeling of intimacy with the audience, perhaps because the conceit – a family catch-up over Zoom – meant the makers didn’t have to elide the medium somehow but could effectively lean into it.