Performance Dates
26 Sept 2001 – 27 Oct 2001September 2001
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October 2001
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Details
- Playwright
- Ron Blair
- Director
- John Bell
AddressPier 4 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay, Sydney
"A remarkable tour de force. Mr CarrollÂ’s is the kind of performance in which the actor seems actually to have become the man whom he portrays. He is extremely funny and, at the close, also extremely moving." Sunday Telegraph, UK
"Peter Carroll gives a stunning performance as the merciless brother." Michael Billington, The Guardian, UK
In this stunning play for a single actor, playwright Ron Blair gives his devoted, overworked teaching Brother a well-thrashed chair, a strap, a blackboard, and the audience as his pupils.
Telescoped into one lesson, the Brother (Peter Carroll) cajoles and bullies his pupils as he races through history, French, literature, physics and Christian doctrine, lurching from lesson to homily, into dire threats one minute, man-to-man worldly advice the next.
This is a beautifully developed portrait of a man torn between loving and loathing his students, struggling to give guidance while his own demons of incompetence and failure flutter about in his head. Compassionate and critical, the play moves far beyond satire, taking on a surreal quality as time is compressed and expanded, as fantasy and memory intrude.
Peter Carroll, in this brilliant creation of a man on a crusade for certainty but on the edge of a nervous breakdown, is once again directed by John Bell. John makes a welcome return to Sydney Theatre Company, along with the original team which made this play a landmark for Nimrod in the 1970s and embarked on a highly successful UK tour.
"A wild celebratory criticism. A painfully clear view of a society, Australia, fifty years ago. It's so mad... but with that shocking ring of truth. And I'm finally the right age to play it." Peter Carroll, actor
Further info.
"Peter Carroll gives a stunning performance as the merciless brother." Michael Billington, The Guardian, UK
In this stunning play for a single actor, playwright Ron Blair gives his devoted, overworked teaching Brother a well-thrashed chair, a strap, a blackboard, and the audience as his pupils.
Telescoped into one lesson, the Brother (Peter Carroll) cajoles and bullies his pupils as he races through history, French, literature, physics and Christian doctrine, lurching from lesson to homily, into dire threats one minute, man-to-man worldly advice the next.
This is a beautifully developed portrait of a man torn between loving and loathing his students, struggling to give guidance while his own demons of incompetence and failure flutter about in his head. Compassionate and critical, the play moves far beyond satire, taking on a surreal quality as time is compressed and expanded, as fantasy and memory intrude.
Peter Carroll, in this brilliant creation of a man on a crusade for certainty but on the edge of a nervous breakdown, is once again directed by John Bell. John makes a welcome return to Sydney Theatre Company, along with the original team which made this play a landmark for Nimrod in the 1970s and embarked on a highly successful UK tour.
"A wild celebratory criticism. A painfully clear view of a society, Australia, fifty years ago. It's so mad... but with that shocking ring of truth. And I'm finally the right age to play it." Peter Carroll, actor
Further info.
Bookings
This production has concluded. Contact details are not available for past events.