Theatre

For actor Toby Schmitz, there’s nothing like the exhilaration of being on stage, but for the past week he’s replicated some of that feeling in a series of live-streamed performances of Will Eno’s Thom Pain. He speaks about playing Hamlet, the vitality of theatre and keeping his ‘art spark’ alight in the Covid-19 lockdown. “The audience is the final director that teaches you things you would never have thought of. You know, if one person moves their leg it may mean nothing, but if four people do, then you’ve lost them somehow.”

The coronavirus crisis has left many in the arts struggling. But Belvoir artistic director Eamon Flack is determined to use the shutdown as a catalyst for positive change and to push ahead with bringing new Australian works to the stage. “Really early on in this – when we didn’t know how bad it was going to get – we decided that this was going to be a good time to rethink a whole lot of things. We wanted to come out of this crisis, however long it went on for, having fixed some things, and having made some deep, permanent changes.”

Before becoming a playwright, screenwriter and showrunner, Tony McNamara was a stockbroker who had failed year 11 English. Now, after being nominated for an Oscar for The Favourite, he brings his acerbic dialogue and honest storytelling to his new TV series, The Great. “I saw a lot of Pinter, a lot of Mamet, Caryl Churchill … I was struck by how visceral it was, how you could get a rhythm going that really carries an audience along.”

The Young Vic’s 2014 production of A Streetcar Named Desire, recently rebroadcast during the Covid-19 lockdown, reminds this viewer of the work’s power but also of the test of matching the smouldering energy of Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh.

Four weeks after becoming the artistic director of Sydney’s Griffin Theatre Company, Declan Greene had to cancel two plays because of Covid-19. He speaks about this extraordinary challenge, his childhood flair for drama and his ambitions for the company. “I’m constantly thinking I should do more to change things in the world … I’m interested in reconfiguring the space I work in to make it a more equal place.”

With the Covid-19 lockdown forcing Sydney arts precinct Carriageworks into voluntary administration, the embattled cultural sector is bracing for worse to come.

With theatres around the world closed, stage productions are now entering our homes, via the internet. The fourth streaming performance from Britain’s National Theatre, Twelfth Night, takes its audience on a rollicking journey of mistaken identity and besotted love.

MTC and Queensland Theatre’s revival of Emerald City brings the distinctly Australian dramatic idiom of playwright David Williamson into focus once more. Skilfully led by Nadine Garner, the work still has much to offer.

Despite some shaky moments, Benjamin Law’s Torch the Place is filled with humour and heart, and breathes new life into the Australian tradition of naturalism.

Though it never quite coheres, The Feather in the Web takes some sharp digs at contemporary society and is bolstered by an excellent cast.