Earth cry: Stone Soup & Griffin Independent’s Thomas Murray and the Upside Down River

The thing I love most about the Stables theatre is the size of its stage. No other theatre in Sydney that I can think of has a stage quite like it – in size, shape, or layout – and I am constantly amazed at how malleable it is; no two productions ever feel quite the same – sometimes the space feels bigger, sometimes smaller, sometimes grander or more intimate, sometimes even a different shape, as directors, designers, and theatre-makers call upon our imaginations to inhabit and make total the world presented on stage. As you enter the theatre from the stairs, the first thing you notice is the dusty light, a golden glow like the sun, like lamp-light, like candles and canvas; the floor – that precious little diamond space – is covered in planks of timber, time-worn and much-loved, creams and greens and reds and browns and greys, all slotted together in a jigsaw of a stage, like a patchwork quilt, a farm seen from the air. To one side, a ladder and chair; to another, a tyre swing; behind it, a canvas backcloth. And as the lights dim, a figure enters, breathing heavily, covered in dust and mud and dirt, and the space begins to hum with a resonance I have not quite seen in that space for a little while. And it is beautiful.

Pelican dreaming: STC's Storm Boy

We’ve all grown up with the story – the boy who raises three orphaned pelicans – and it’s become a steadfast Australian classic, a touchstone of our childhood and growing up. Growing up, I read Colin Thiele’s elegant story first in the edition accompanied by Robert Ingpen’s haunting weather-beaten illustrations. I read it again, several years later, in an edition illustrated with stills from Henri Safran’s 1976 film. And while I haven’t read it in something approaching a decade, the chance to see it on stage seemed too good to miss. In what could be considered a fiftieth anniversary production^fn, Thiele’s Storm Boy has been brought to the stage in a poetic and emotional co-production between Perth’s Barking Gecko Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company.