Richard Roxburgh (left) and Hugo Weaving will feature in a new production of Waiting For Godot. (Pic: Sydney Theatre Company)

Sydney Theatre Company will run a production of Samuel Beckett’s classic play Waiting For Godot in November 2013, with Hugo Weaving and Richard Roxburgh set to play the existentialist duo.

Weaving will play Vladimir and Roxburgh Estragon, in a production directed by Tamás Archer, to run at the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) between November 12 and December 7 next year.

Waiting for Godot is one of a wide range of productions revealed by STC in its new season announcement on September 7, the last by its current co-artistic directors Andrew Upton and Cate Blanchett.

She has described the new season as a celebration of ‘dynamic duos’.

“There are some classics of the 20th century – seminal works we’ve always wanted to do such as Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, Waiting For Godot and The Maids, alongside many new Australian works including Laser Beak Man, Vere (Faith) and Storm Boy and the fabulous new commissions Fury and The Secret River,” the pair said.

“We’ll have to rehearse it a bit first,” Weaving told The Australian recently, with Roxburgh adding that he hoped the duo does not ‘disgrace ourselves’.

Director Leland Kean describes All The Rage as an "Irish yarn". (Pic: Luke Cowling)

With the London Olympics almost upon us the play All The Rage is being put on by Tamarama Rock Surfers theatre company to celebrate.

The dark comedy is the brainchild of John AD Fraser, best known for Rock Paper Scissors and The Great Roadhouse.

The production, directed by Leland Kean, officially opened at the Old Fitzroy Theatre in Woolloomooloo on June 20.

It runs until July 14, with a cast including Laurence Coy, Xavier Coy, Duncan Fellows and Scarlet McGlynn.

The play tells the story of former IRA commander Skin-the Goat, who is keen to reassert his power and gain some respect by pulling off one last sting at the London Olympics.

He talks the young Viet Cong obsessed Boyler into action and also manages to rope traitorous bomber, The Baker, into getting involved.

However there is one catch, Skin-the Goat is actually plotting to step in as the ultimate saviour in order to impress the ambitious journalist Nina.

Director Leland Kean believes the play is a must see for Irish comedy fans in Sydney.

“It’s always a bit nerve-racking to send out a new work, but it’s been getting lots of laugh, which is good,” he explained.

“It’s Irish theatre, written by a Scotsman and directed by an Australian and starring Aussies.

“Essentially it’s an Irish yarn though. It’s about three boys who are loosely associated with the Republican movement.

“One decides to pull off one last stint after the Good Friday agreement but it doesn’t all go quite to plan.

“I hope the next morning a few computer screens are sprayed with coffee shots out of noses when people remember what they have seen the night before,” he added.

Mr Kean was also involved in the recent Bloomsday celebrations in Bondi and says they hope to make next year’s festivities even bigger and better.

“It was a wonderful day. It was a pretty rough day in terms of the weather but we had a great turn out.

“We had a couple of hundred people through the doors on the day.

“The Irish turned out in force and plenty of Guinness was drunk,” he laughed.

For more on All The Rage see http://www.rocksurfers.org

Max Gillies as Brian and Tony Martin (behind) as Danny in The Seed.

Fairfax Studio, Melbourne (until April 4)
Rating: 4/5

The Seed is a powerful play that delves into familial myths and the damage they can cause through generations.

Danny and daughter Rose have travelled from Geraldton, Western Australia, to Nottingham in England to visit Brian – Danny’s belligerent, IRA-supporting father.

The Maloneys are a dysfunctional bunch, to say the least.

The visit takes place on the same day as the trio’s shared birthday and Guy Fawkes celebrations in England.

Danny (Tony Martin) left for Australia decades ago and found that his youthful exuberance for a new homeland was diminished by conscription to Australia’s participation in the Vietnam war. He suffers ‘whiteouts’ from his contact with Agent Orange, the destructive herbicide used by the US military.

Rose, a failed journalist and budding writer, is lost and trying to find her own story. She feels she cannot do so without knowing her father’s and grandfather’s stories first so her Dictaphone, or “dickey phone” as Brian calls it, is always at hand.

The patriarch Brian (Max Gillies) has never stopped fighting for Ireland and ‘the cause’, this despite living in England for most of his life.

Kate Mulvany’s searing and honest portrait into her family’s antagonistic past is not new to Australian audiences.

Mulvany directed and acted in the role of Rose when she first brought it to the stage in 2007, which leaves Sara Gleeson with an unenviable task for this production. Without having seen Mulvany’s performance, it is hard to compare the two. Although it’s intended for Rose to be the prism through which we view much of the play’s events, she is somewhat overshadowed by her co-stars.

While Max Gillies brings the comedic touch he is known and loved for, it seems out of place in the character of Brian. He is as funny as he is cruel. There is a disconnect somewhere, in tone or audience perception. Strong belly laughs for a man who decries the presence of Pakis in Nottingham and boasts about murder was unusual.

Despite Mulvany telling us in the programme notes “it’s okay to laugh” it feels sometimes as though it is not.

On the face of it, Brian is contemptible in many ways. A bully. A supposed terrorist. Maybe Gillies’ likability just gets in the way.

But then again, Brian has some of the best lines in this play. Any expat familiar with the various contradictions inherent in living in one country and coming from another will laugh at Brian arguing his sons were picked on for being “Irish Catholic Notts Forest supporters”.

Tony Martin is outstanding as Danny. The physicality of his performance, the nuanced delivery of an Irish-English-Australian accent, his rapport with Rose and his sideways steps away from his father’s shadow are highlights of this production.

The opportunities for laughter decrease as the play progresses and there is an uneasiness that is built up to an explosive crescendo fitting of any Guy Fawkes night.

More is teased from Danny’s experiences in Vietnam as Brian’s years of ugly boasts prove to be nothing but dud fireworks.

The Weir is a loyal interpretation of Conor McPherson’s modern Irish classic.

4/5

The Weir at the New Theatre in Newtown is a quaint, lyrical little play which uses the spoken word and the silence in between to weave its black magic and leave the audience spellbound.

We get a good idea of the play’s theme from the meaning of its title, a weir being a boundary on a river that can function as a dam. The weir prevents flooding and allows the flow of water to be regulated.

Just as the weir is a sort of crossroads and can alter the course of nature, the play’s protagonists tell their stories to try to bridge the gap between the present and the afterlife and draw themselves together with their shared humanity. Though there are rivalries and distance between each of the five characters, we get a real sense of the power of the spoken word to light up dark nights and fight off loneliness.

Directed by Alice Livingstone, this version is a loyal interpretation of Conor McPherson’s modern Irish classic, which was first performed in 1997 to mass critical acclaim – winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play.

The set design is spot on and the tiny, two-tap (Guinness and Harp) tavern complete with dusty floors and GAA pictures on the walls evokes rural Ireland perfectly and creates a kind of campfire intimacy – ideal for the ghost stories that follow.

With only one Irish cast member, some of the accents are only vaguely Irish and the intonations are not always authentic. However, this will only be noticed by native speakers and is not fair criticism of an Australian production, acted brilliantly by a thoughtful, seasoned cast.

The action opens with small talk about tractors and the windy weather between the middle-aged barman Brendan and two of the older locals Jack and Jim, all single men looking for a pint and a fag and some company.

The gossip quickly turns to the subject of Finbar, an opportunistic local businessman who has sold a house to a glamorous Dublin dame named Valerie. When the pair arrives at the bar a few moments later, we begin to see glimpses of sexual interest and rivalry among the men, who we later learn have failed to build long-lasting, satisfactory relationships for themselves.

But they and the convivial, slightly lecherous Finbar – played with great energy and humour by Dublin-born Patrick Connolly, hardly have time to jostle for superiority before the play veers subtly into deeper waters, when a ghostly incident, which occurred at the house Valerie just bought, rears its head.

Each character in turn spins a story; tales that, as the evening wears on, become profound, eloquent and occasionally hilarious. Little mysteries evolve into eerie amazement and revelations of love, loss, and loneliness.

We feel we are being given a glimpse into the soul of an old, repressed Ireland as personified by these characters, and it’s a poignant experience.

The expertly crafted dialogue further evokes the chilling realisation that the paranormal does not always have  a reasonable explanation and we are left to wonder whether it was really a wrong number, or was the spectral emerging from the shadows?

Irish writer and actor Neil Watkins stars in this enticing, truthful play.

You can imagine my boyfriend’s surprise when I tell him of our plans for Valentine’s night. I can see his eyebrow arch … a play about masturbation? Except it’s not.

From the people who bring you clever, bold theatre to Ireland’s Electric Picnic festival, THISISPOPBABY present the award-winning  The Year of Magical Wanking.

Coinciding with the Mardi Gras, Irish writer and actor Neil Watkins, takes to the dimly lit rectangular bordered stage at the Sydney Theatre to present to an honest open stream of his life experiences accompanied by an emotional roller-coaster of shame, self-loathing, despair and attempted acceptance.

Taking you on a journey of self-discovery, Watkins hop-scotches from city to city: from Dublin to New York and Paris to Finland.

This is an enticing, truthful account of one man’s story, which he hopes, in the telling, will give him added clarity each time he delivers it.

It covers family, homosexuality, the shameless state of the Catholic Church, abuse, HIV, porn, sex and yes – masturbation.

Suiting the dark undertones of the play and the trapped sentience of what he portrays, Neil delivers his story in an industrial-like stone-walled fortress.

With only one solo stool as a prop and a smoke-machine for added effect, he poses and paces back and forth barefooted, dressed in grey and with two war paint like blue strips on his face. Is this war? “…infuse my heart with courage, I am a wanker…I wank therefore I slam, not healthy if you feel shame”.

Taking his self-loathing to stage, Watkins lightens the darkness of the subject matter with the help of Shakespearean rhythm. He flows from one sentence to the next; surprising, shocking, engaging the audience with stories of abuse and violent sex whilst still having the ability to interject some quality Irish humor.

Declaring wanking as the answer, he later expresses a willingness to be emotionally involved and to “wake up in someone’s arms”. With addiction being a common occurrence, two more added to the list of revelations include that of smoking weed and of laptop porn.

The title is a play on words taken from the novel The Year of Magical Thinking from Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist Joan Didion.

Written following the death of her husband (and the occurrence of her daughter being hospitalised), this reference to mourning literature reflects the parallel nature of what Neil Watkins is experiencing.

Whilst Didion turns to magic and denial, Watkins turns to a witch doctor and masturbation.

The common thread of the mourning theme lends itself to Watkin’s own vision of his funeral and what the eulogy would reveal.

Neil, in his 33rd year, draws comparisons throughout to Jesus.

The soliloquy also carries on conversations with additional characters; the aforementioned white witch doctor, a conquest, Finnish joint-smoking skate-boarders and his alter ego Heidi Konnt, winner of Alternative Miss Ireland 2006, who drew a lot laughs from the audience …”I gave you my best hand-jobs!”

With Konnt as a mask, he struggles to break free from this reigning Queen. “I made more cash than all your faggy acting gigs” she declares.

Whilst addressing his fear, his shame, his pain of antagonists, dealing with HIV and his tendency to leaning on the wild side of things, he springs back and forth amongst a sea of social insecurity, yet does set out on a road to salvation, attempting yoga and later finding solace in Amma, the hugging saint.

This is a true, harrowing story of one brave Irish man who delivers a gripping, clever and real performance.

Irish actor David Kelly has died after a short illness. (File pic)

The actor David Kelly, best known to Irish audiences for his appearances in the RTÉ miniseries Strumpet City, has died aged 82.

Kelly was a prolific actor who worked regularly across stage and television – and one of the more recognizable faces of Ireland’s acting community.

The role of ‘Rashers’ Tierney in Strumpet City is what will stick in many people’s minds, although Kelly, a versatile actor, also appeared in productions of Shakespeare and Beckett.

However, he also came to wider appeal with his comic turn as O’Reilly the builder alongside John Cleese in Fawlty Towers.

Kelly will be known to younger audiences as Charlie’s grandfather in Tim Burton’s 2005 remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Kelly is survived by wife, Laurie, son David and daughter Miriam.

The Walworth Farce will finish its world tour in Australia early next year.

By Aaron Dunne

Galway’s Druid Theatre Company will bring the curtain down on the biggest ever world tour of an Irish play when they arrive in Sydney next April.

The company are currently in the US, halfway through their massive world tour of Irish writer Enda Walsh’s play, The Walworth Farce, by the end of which they will have performed in six countries and 22 cities. (That’s whopping 209 performances for those keeping count!)

The tour, which kicked off in September in Galway, will have gone through Ireland, England, Canada and the US before landing Down Under to perform shows in Perth, Adelaide, Wollongong, Newcastle, Wellington and Canberra before finishing up in Sydney on April 24.

The play, which centres around three Irish men in a council flat in London, will run in Perth from February 23 – 27 at the Playhouse Theatre as part of the Perth International Arts Festival, an event where another of Walsh’s works, The New Electric Ballroom, featured last year.

From there Druid will move on to play the Fringe Festival in Adelaide at Her Majesty’s Theatre from March 3 – 5, the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre in Wollongong from March 10 – 13, the Civic Theatre in Newcastle from March 25 – 27, the Canberra Theatre from April 7 – 10, and the Sydney Theatre from April 14 – 24.

The tour is being funded partly by Culture Ireland and the Arts Council of Ireland, who have also provided funding for Irish dance theatre, Fabulous Beast, and their production of Giselle, which will be presented at the Sydney Festival next January.

For more information log on to www.artsprojectsaustralia.com.au or www.sydneyfestival.org.au