2015, the year in preview

In Sydney’s theatres this year, there are many shows to look forwards to – Masquerade, MinusOneSister, and 2014 Griffin Award winner The Bleeding Tree at Griffin; Beckett, Chekhov, Dorfman, Woolf, Shakespeare, Shaw, and new plays from Melissa Bubnic and Kylie Coolwell at Sydney Theatre Company; Radiance, Mother Courage, Samson, Mortido and Ivanov at Belvoir; and a year of staples – Hamlet, The Tempest, As You Like It – from Bell Shakespeare. There’s Sport for Jove’s Edward II; The ANZAC Project at the Ensemble theatre; James Thierrée’s Tabac Rouge, Falling Through Clouds, Kiss and Cry, and The Kitchen at the Sydney Festival, as well as the David Byrne/Fatboy Slim musical Here Lies Love for Vivid, Rocky Horror Show’s long awaited return, the Australian premiere of Matilda the musical, and several shows interstate.

On Reading, Part Two

There’s an old quote of uncertain origin, which you are no doubt familiar with: ‘Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, well, it’s too dark to read.’ That’s kind of been me recently – the book as man’s best friend, I mean, not the inside a dog part – and it’s funny in a way how much more enjoyable reading is when you’re reading for pleasure – reading for no other reason than to read, reading because you want to – and not because you have to read.

On Reading, Part One

I don’t know if I’ve come across an author whose delight is language and in words is as obvious and tangible as Anthony Burgess’. 

I bought A Clockwork Orange years ago, before I knew anything really about it. I tried to read it for a class I did at uni and didn’t get it at all; I tried again two years later and sped through it, devouring it hungrily like a madman. I loved the way he combined fragments of existing languages, made up his own words, played with the words themselves and their syllables, broke them down and rhapsodised upon a theme of language. There was also the allure of a good bit of Beethoven (or ‘Lovely Ludwig Van’ as Alex likes to call him) and the superawesome cover.

On Reading, Part Four

Since finishing uni, my book consumption has dropped dramatically. Reading has always been a bit of an escape for me, something I do instead of doing what I’m meant to be doing, something that lets me escape the word around me and lose myself for a couple of thousand words, spend time with people I’d otherwise never have the opportunity to meet. Very rarely do I go anywhere without a book, even if it is just to feel the weight of words in my bag.

Berlin Syndrome by Melanie Joosten was one of this year’s Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist awardees, and is essentially, the story of two people – Clare and Andi – and their struggle of co-dependency, seen through the Stockholm Syndrome. Cleverly appropriating the Stockholm syndrome (from which the book is titled), we slowly see Clare and Andi’s world collapse in upon itself, their needs and want destroying the beautiful obsession which brought them together in the first place.

On Reading, Part Three

A colleague at work asked me a while ago how many books I’d read in a year. I replied that it was ‘a lot,’ and that I’d never really counted properly before. So, these bi-monthly entries are that attempt, a record of the books I’ve read this year with commentary and thoughts on the patterns, the images, the styles that I come across.

Perhaps the first truly noteworthy piece I read in this instalment was This Year’s Ashes, a play produced by Griffin Theatre Company in November 2011, written by Jane Bodie. It had received good reviews and I wanted to see it, but as with many things, time conspired against me and it closed before I could get a chance to find an evening to go. There’s something about reading plays that I find wonderful: on one level, I see them playing out as if in real life, like a film I spose, with the scenes being cut together without the blackout or change in lighting state and or costume that you get in theatre. On another level, I see them as they might have been performed in the theatre (if I didn’t see them performed, that is), and I try to imagine how they would’ve been staged, how it would’ve all worked. And on another level, I look at how the scenes are ordered, how the characters are written, how the play is written, how it all works, trying to work out what makes it tick.

On Reading, Part One

Some years, I make a list of books I'd like to read that year. Some years I give up halfway through, some years I barely scratch the surface of the list before giving up entirely, other years I get a fair whack of the way through it before I find other books to distract me and I never finish it. So this year, I thought I'd stick to a small list of books that I'd like to read, have been meaning to read, have never got around to reading, that I should've read before now but haven't, and see how far I get through it. As a loose kind of rule, there has to be a modicum of classics balanced by a similar quantity of newer books. Books that make awards lists are generally avoided, as I have found that more often than not, they’re not exactly wholesome and rewarding books. Bear in mind, though, that I will not elaborate upon every book I read, just some that I feel deserve it.