SYDNEY — It seems to be a particularly busy time for theatre here at the moment, more than our volunteer reviewers can keep up with. As well, many of the plays about to open have short seasons, and may disappear almost before a review appears. At least four so-far-unreviewed offerings look interesting:
Love Child from Club Bent at the Performance Space (199 Cleveland Street, Redfern) is described as "three nights of new short performance works, followed by DJs 'til late". The three nights are Saturday, August 8, Saturday, September 12, and Saturday, November 7 (all at 8pm).
Curated by Victoria Spence and Groovii Biscuit, the first night is titled Flying and "brings together a delicious array of queer performers who will scale the heights, plummet the depths, soar, free fall and float through an evening that promises more variety than an in-flight entertainment program and more nourishment than an economy class meal".
Tickets are $12 ($8 concession) at the door.
Love and Understanding, performed by the Tamarama Rock Surfers, has completed a three-week season at the Old Fitzroy Hotel in Woolloomooloo and is transferring for another three weeks (August 8-30) at the Belvoir Street Theatre upstairs.
Directed by Jason Clarke, the play is described as a "love triangle". More than that we do not know.
Tickets are $31 full, $19 concession, $24 on Tuesdays and $15 student rush (Wed, Thurs from 7.30pm).
Friends of Dorothy by William Yang, at the Performance Space, August 12-23 (preview August 11). This is Yang's third full-length monologue with slides, following on from The North and Sadness. It weaves his story as a gay man with some of the significant issues and events of the last 20 years.
The first "incarnation" of Friends of Dorothy was as an exhibition for the 1997 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival. Bookings on 9698 7235.
Definitely the most intriguing play title in a long time is www.ophelia/hamlet.au — a website not, by PACT Theatre in collaboration with the UNSW Theatre, Film and Dance School.
It promises a less than reverent treatment of old Will and the answer to such questions as: What did Ophelia get up to in that nunnery? What choices can't Hamlet make? What exactly is rotten in the state of Denmark?
Performances are at 107 Railway Parade, Erskineville, August 14-16, 19-23 and 26-29, all at 8pm. Tickets $16 ($12 concession); book on 9550 2744.