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KEITH GOW, WRITER

I am currently working on three new pieces under the working titles: The House I Grew Up in was a Spaceship, The Last of the Loveable Larrikins and The S&M Play.

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Popular Posts

REVIEW: A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams – Melbourne Theatre Company

“I don’t want realism… I’ll tell you what I want. Magic!” In Tennessee Williams’ Southern Gothic melodrama, Blanche DuBois is a storyteller. She has to be. As an unmarried woman in the 1940s, dealing with the loss of her parents and the family home, she must keep up the pretence that everything is okay. But when she moves in with her sister, Stella, and Stella’s husband, Stanley, the holes in her carefully told tales start to unravel and the way forward becomes less and less clear. The inspiration for Blanche is Williams’ sister, Rose, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and later lobotomised. The success of A Streetcar Named Desire enabled the playwright to pay for Rose’s ongoing care. But a clear diagnosis for Blanche’s flights of fancy and delusions are unclear – left purposely vague in the text, and difficult to align with how we currently discuss mental illness. For Melbourne Theatre Company’s new production, helmed by Artistic Director Anne-Louise Sarks, Blanche’s tendency to e...

REVIEW: WICKED by Stephen Schwartz & Winnie Holzman

The musical Wicked, loosely based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, probably needs no introduction. It’s the fourth longest-running show on Broadway ever, behind The Phantom of the Opera , the 1996 production of Chicago (which is visiting Melbourne again soon) and The Lion King . And it’s about to be turned into a two-part film, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, directed by Jon M. Chu, who made Crazy Rich Asians . But just in case you didn’t know – it’s based on the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West (here named Elphaba) and her long-standing friendship with Glinda the Good Witch, before things go sour for her and the merry old land of… in The Wizard of Oz . This is Wicked ’s third time in Melbourne, after seasons in 2008-09 and 2014. And judging by the energy in the room on opening night, it has lost none of its power and it may have actually gained some along the way. Its reputation does precede it. I saw the show a number of times when it was here original...

REVIEW: English by Sanaz Toossi – Melbourne Theatre Company

“The specific difficulties of each language leaves distinct traces in the brain. So, we are not the same if we learn to speak one language, or if we then learn another.” – Alfred Anwander, neuroscientist “You lit a fuse and now I’m ticking away / Like a bomb, yeah, baby” – Ricky Martin, She Bangs * In a classroom in Karaj, Iran. Four students gather to study in an effort to pass the TOEFL: test of English as a Foreign Language. They are at different points of their journey. Goli seems to have a good grasp – or at least she’s got confidence. Elham is much less confident, because as we discover later – she’s attempted this test more than once. Omid seems to know a lot more – and he’s picked up an American accent from somewhere. Roya is older, a grandmother, hoping to learn enough English so she can join her son and grandchild in Canada. Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, English , has a very simple premise and the early scenes are definitely what you’d expect from t...

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