Coffee-Table Notes

On a sunny Saturday morning in Stellwork, a children’s’ and young people’s theatre beside Weimar’s railway station in central Germany, Andy Manley is performing his Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland winning show, Stick by Me. Manley’s almost wordless tale, created with director Ian Cameron and produced by Red Bridge Arts, sees him duet with a series of ice-lolly sticks in a show that taps into a series of physical set-piece that looks at big worldly subjects of death, loss, love and friendship. Manley’s creation also taps into an international language of fun that pervades throughout Weimar Kunstfest, the multi-artform festival that takes place annually over three weeks in late August and early September. Now in its thirtieth year, Weimar Kunstfest takes place in the former East German city more readily associated with the heavyweight seriousness of Goethe, Schiller and Liszt, all former residents. This was prior to the city opening Germany up to its first democracy in 19

Perth Theatre Four stars Playing God, as every writer of speculative fiction will know, is something that goes with the mind-expanding, parallel universe-mastering - or indeed mistressing - territory. So it goes for Eilidh Loan’s myth-making Mary Shelley in Rona Munro’s new adaptation of Shelley’s much reinvented gothic fantasia, in which strung-out scientist Victor Frankenstein ends up on the receiving end of his own life-giving creative force. By putting Mary onstage at the centre of things rather than a mere framing device, Munro has written something that gets to the heart of the creative process itself. With only hints of what’s going on in her own teenage life, Mary gives full vent to her darkest imaginings, as she allows Michael Moreland’s loveless Monster to exact deadly revenge on Ben Castle Gibb’s Frankenstein, raising the show’s body count to Agatha Christie style proportions. Only in the second act does Mary let Michael Moreland’s flesh and blood Monster off

Making connections is everything in David Greig's new adaptation of Solaris, Polish writer Stanislaw Lem's 1961 science fiction novel, famously filmed in 1972 by Andrei Tarkovsky four years after a Russian TV version appeared. Steven Soderbergh in 2002. If the writer and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theater in Edinburgh did not connect with Matthew Lutton of the Melbourne-based Malthouse Theater, Lutton's production of Greig's adaptation would never have happened. As it is, Solaris has already enjoyed a successful run in Melbourne prior to its opening next week in Edinburgh, followed by a run at the Lyric, Hammersmith, who are also co-producers. This follows the Malthouse's last visit to the Lyceum with Tom Wright's searing adaptation of Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay's classic Australian novel, first published in 1967, and edited by Peter Weir eight years later. "I think David was surprised when I suggested Solaris," says Lutt

Ningali Lawford-Wolf Actor, mentor, teacher Born 1967 or 1968; died August 11 2019  Ningali Lawford-Wolf, who has died suddenly aged 52 following complications from an asthma attack, was an iconic actor, and in Australia was one of the most powerful indigenous voices of her generation. This was clear in her performance in The Secret River, Sydney Theatre Company’s staging of Kate Grenville’s 2005 novel, which cut to the heart of Australia’s colonial past and its abuses of the indigenous Aborigine people. Adapted for the stage by Andrew Bovell, while the play focused on a white émigré, Lawford-Wolf’s performance as its narrator, Dhirrumbin, became its conscience, as she bore witness to how her community was effectively forced into exile at home. Having already been a success in Australia, the run of The Secret River at Edinburgh International Festival created further waves, bringing home a piece of hidden history which put Lawford-Wolf at its centre. Onstage throughout what tu