Category: Entertainment

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Coming soon at the Convent

Sanctum Theatre‘s “Lament; Candles & Compost” is to be the first dramatic production in the Convent’s new incarnation in the Rosina auditorium (where the refectory is during this weekend’s Slow Food Festival). It runs from this Saturday, 16 September 2006 to Sunday 1 October 2006 and is part of the Fringe Festival. Tickets are $20 / $15, and there is a $10 preview on Friday 15 September 2006. A woman tried to tell me what it was about, and I read the website, but I will not hazard a guess at what it all means; read it for yourself.

From early 2007 there will be 3 regular tours of the Convent: Heritage Gardens, Architecture, and Social History. The spiel is “Discover the history of this unique site. Experience sensory encounters. Immerse yourself in this oasis.” Call for more details early next year (or keep reading the blog) on 9417 3363.
Then there’s “I Start Again“, from 13 to 23 September 2006, two Beckett plays interspersed with “fragments” of Shostakovich, both of whom would have been 100 this year had they not carked it early (plus two new local short plays). This is the website’s spiel:

Two of the twentieth century’s finest artists turn 100 this year, or would have, had the tides of time not been drawn to sure [sic.]. A IS FOR ATLAS brings you a theatrical installation inspired by and reflecting on the work of these two great artists. Four short plays, sonata fragments, and a visual art feast combine for a cross-artform event like no other.

Also featuring the world-first performance of Samuel Beckett’s What Where by an all-female cast.

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Park Hotel’s Third Birthday: 1 April 2006

Now I do like a bit of Chinoiserie moderne, and it’s a la mode right now in newly degrunged pubs and quirky Japanese cafes alike. The Park Hotel is a truly excellent pub in Abbotsford, which manages to be grungy and degrunged at once, down Nicholson St a bit from the Retreat Hotel on the other side at no. 191 (9419 4352). It has copies of Truth lying around (and I thought defamation writs had shut it down, but it seemed to have morphed even more into a racing tabloid), itself more kitsch interior decor than true fodder for the regs probably but then I’m not sure about that, and a good beer garden, with a pool table. Its kitchen serves up tasty tucker and its prices are reasonable. One time, its taps had broken down and they were selling stubbies for the price of pots. That was a good day. Its present incarnation’s having its third birthday on April Fool’s Day, and, unless they’re joshing, there’s going to be fillums ‘n all. [I can’t find any evidence on the internet of The Truth being extant, but that doesn’t mean anything. I did find this interview of a former editor though, in which the rag is described as something read by folk who won their money on the racing pages and spent it on the brothel pages, and in which it is recounted that a Mr Justice Innes described it in the 1890s as “a wretched little paper reeking of filth”. I also learnt that it broke some serious stories, including what happened at Maralinga with the A bomb blasts. Those were the days, when it would sell 400,000 copies a day.]