A contemporary performance of profound lightness, humour and exquisite detail that explores the complexities of human affection. With conversation, song and live harpsichord music, Affection gently searches the connections between three performers and their audience. Freely traversing the abstract and the ordinary Affection looks at the way people empathise and nurture, reject, help and play with each other. Featuring the music of Francois Couperin (1668-1733), Brian Wilson, The Ramones and the harpsichord of Anastasia Russel-Head.
A brutal naturalism, which feels more like great improvisation than the scripted piece it is. For all this, it is as refreshing and as unmannered a piece of theatre as I have seen, which leaves the audience squirming and self-scrutinising, even as they laugh.
Allison Vale, British Theatre Guide
Funding Partners
2007 - Premiere
Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales
Directed and Devised by
Adriano Cortese
Text by
Raimondo Cortese
Performed and Co-devised by
Heather Bolton, Paul Lum, and Patrick Moffatt
RevieWS
Lucid, gentle, funny and unexpectedly moving, it remains one of the shows
of the year.
The Australian
Wistful humour permeates writer Raimondo Cortese's artful manipulation
of the solecisms of everyday speech. The writing is infused with a yearning
for simplicity, the pleasures of lost youth. Director Adriano Cortese's
production... is unforced and nuanced... you could almost be fooled into
thinking no one is really acting at all. But therein lies a paradoxical
point of Holiday: we perform all the time. When we're watched, we're theatre.
Jason Blake, Sun-Herald, Sydney
This is theatre of the moment, in which no word exists before it is uttered, no action before it is performed. There is no story in the sense of a developing narrative, just a series of crystalline moments that can leap from the boring to the beautiful in a breath.
This is contemporary performance of the highest calibre, wrought with deft skill and tempered with a discerning, unwavering hand.John Bailey, Real Time Magazine
Ranters Theatre achieves a profound and joyous lightness. From writing to performance to design, Holiday is a devastatingly elegant show. It's a series of apparently artless, inconsequential dialogues, interspersed with a capella performances of baroque love songs by Schubert, Bocconcini or Gluck that excavate the unspoken desires that run beneath the skin of idle conversation.
Alison Croggon, Theatrenotes
Holiday is great theatre - funny and light as air on the surface, with philosophical depths that will niggle you long after you leave.
Cameron Woodhead, The Age
This gentle, subtly hued and intellectually rigorous piece easily ranks among their best.
John Bailey, The Sunday Age
Funding partners
2007 Victorian Green Room Awards for:
Best Production
Best Direction
Best New Writing
Best Male Performer
Best Set/Costume Design
2007 - Premiere
Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall
2008
Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne
2009
SBW Stables Theatre, Sydney
Concept and Direction
Adriano Cortese
Text
Raimondo Cortese
Performed and Co-devised by
Paul Lum and Patrick Moffatt
Set Design
Anna Tregloan
Lighting Design
Niklas Pajanti
Sound Design
David Franzke
Holiday script available online from Currency Press
Melbourne International Arts Festival
Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall
Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales
British Council for the Arts
RevieWS
Their interactions are so completely in the moment, so thrillingly real
and beautifully realised, that you will feel like a voyeur. Privileged.
Awed.
Chris Boyd, Herald Sun
The six actors give one of the finest ensemble performances I have seen.
On stage for two hours, they could almost be improvising their park bench
conversations, apparently randomly relating to one another, drifting apart,
always observers and sometimes participants in a slow, familiar social
ritual of chance acquaintance.
It sounds Beckettian, but it is distinctively Australian, local as well
as universal in its references.
The Wall challenges our notions of conventional theatre, but its brilliance
lies in the fact that in the stripping away of performance conventions,
it reveals deeper truths about the human condition.
Helen Thompson,The Age
Funding partners
2003 - Premiere
Horti Hall, Melbourne International Arts Festival
2008
Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall
2008
Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales
Direction
Adriano Cortese
Co-directed
Bob Daoud
Text
Raimondo Cortese
Performed by
Kris Bidenko, Heather Bolton, Beth Buchanan
Natasha Herbert, Paul Lum, Margaret Mills
and Patrick Moffatt
Set Design
Adriano Cortese
Lighting Design
Shane Grant and Paul Lim
Music
Kim Salmon
Adelaide Festival
Company B, Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney
PoNTi 2001 European Capital of Culture Festival, Porto, Portugal
Chapel of Chapel, Melbourne
Site Festival, Coimbra, Portugal
La Mama Theatre, Melbourne
Arts Victoria
Australia Council
City of Melbourne
It's been a long time since I've experienced acting as transcendentally clear, clutter free and mesmerising as this. See it.
David O'Brien, DB Magazine
The short works on offer here are each as amusing, accomplished and provocative entertainments as you could wish to stumble upon. This is very exciting work, by turns naturalistic and surreal, unbearably tense and wildly comic, and always utterly contemporary. At times it's theatre so good you wonder how cinema ever took over in our estimations of performed reality, when only the stage can give a sensation of eavesdropping on extremely intimate human exchanges from a constant, silent point of view.
Steve McLeod, Daily Telegraph
Raimondo Cortese's series of plays is raw theatre at its most basic and brilliant.
Craig Clarke, Sunday Mail.
The plays are works if nuance, throwing light into shadowy realms of common human experience, with sudden stabs of emotional revelation providing climaxes that are occurring within the watcher as much as the actor. Beneath the everyday discourse, the apparently unmediated chat of strangers, we sense incredibly powerful emotions - anguish, rage, terror, longing - that are the real context of human life.
Helen Thomson, The Age.
Such intimate moments of revelation and affinity, such surprising connections, seem to make sense of an increasingly absurd world of laws, rituals and habit. Raimondo Cortese has deftly tapped into these all-too brief epiphanies that bypass politics, culture, social standing and the games we play.
Dina Ross, The Age.
Roulette is highly worked naturalism, dexterously constructed text with the rhythms, ellipses, repetitions and stumbles of ordinary speech. Yet none of these works are two people just having a chat - there are issues at stake, matters to resolve, possibilities to explore. Lovers of the subtleties of narrative, of the joy of pieces that don't deliver meanings pre-determined will find much to stimulate and enjoy.
Stephen Dunne, Sydney Morning Herald.
Raimondo Cortese's writing is delightful. Each character is a hive of buzzing idiosyncrasies. They speak like mad birds, pecking at one another. They pull ideas and memories from the backs of their brains, surprising us with non sequiturs.
Kate Herbert, Herald Sun.
The gold which comes from the writer and the Ranters undoubted theatrical alchemy consists of paring back conversations between characters to the point where the viewer is almost beguiled into believing they are spontaneous, happening now.
The Australian
2002 Victorian Green Room Award Nominations for:
Best Direction
Best Male Actor in a Leading Role
Best Female Actor in Leading Role
2000 - Premiere
The Price Theatre, Adelaide Festival
2001
Company B, Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney
PoNTi 2001 European Capital of Culture Festival, Porto, Portugal
2002
Chapel of Chapel, Melbourne
2003
Site Festival, Coimbra, Portugal
2005
Carlton Courthouse, La Mama Theatre, Melbourne
Butterfactory, Drouin, Victoria
Direction
Adriano Cortese and Bob Daoud
Text
Raimondo Cortese
Performed by
Kristina Bidenko, Heather Bolton, Beth Buchanan,
Zoe Burton, Adriano Cortese, Paul Lum,
Robert Morgan, Torquil Neilson,
Tony Nikolakopoulos, Kelly Tracey
and David Tredinnick
Set Design
Adriano Cortese
Lighting Design
Listerine
Centenary of Federation Festival, Merlyn Theatre, Playbox, Melbourne
Site Festival, Coimbra, Portugal
Teatro Nacional S. Joao, Porto, Portugal
Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales
Green Room, Manchester, England
Arts Victoria
Australia Council
City of Melbourne
British Council for the Arts
St Kilda Tales is a rush of theatrical adrenalin that leaves you punch-drunk but strangely exhilarated. There is nothing like it.
Stage Left Review 2001
Amazingly authentic and not at all precious. It's hard-hitting and obscene, but sounds dead right coming from his cast of 10.
Chris Boyd, Herald Sun
This production really does extend the possibilities of the Australian stage. St Kilda Tales pushes theatre into a new relationship with the world of experience. It reminds us of the most subversive, most democratic truth of all. That everyone has a story.
Michael Cathcart, Summer Series ABC Radio
St Kilda Tales is reminiscent of of the kind of stage occupation practiced by Les Ballet C de la B. It certainly had that same alternating slackness and static electricity, breaking through expectations of the well-organised play or performance piece. Its power is deliberately presentational rather than representational. The critique it presents is finally less of society than of the way that theatre has represented it.
Richard Murphett, Real Time Magazine
2001 Victorian Green Room Award Nomination for:
Best Ensemble
2001 - Premiere
Centenary of Federation Festival, Merlyn Theatre, Playbox, Melbourne
2003
Site Festival, Coimbra, Portugal
Teatro Nacional S. Joao, Porto, Portugal
Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales
Green Room, Manchester, England
Direction
Adriano Cortese
Assistant Direction
Bob Daoud
Text
Raimondo Cortese
Performed by
Kristina Bidenko, Heather Bolton, Beth Buchanan,
Zoe Burton, Luke Elliot, Paul Lum, Patrick Moffatt,
Robert Morgan, Genevieve Morris,
Glenn Perry and Tess Masters.
Set Design
Anna Tregloan
Lighting Design
Shane Grant
Music
Shane Thornton
Melbourne International Arts Festival
Performance Space, Sydney
Theater Der Welt Festival, Berlin, Germany
Arts Victoria
Australia Council
City of Melbourne
Reviews
The sharp, sometimes shattering Features Of Blown Youth may not be an
overtly political play but, in its culmination of detail and debris, it
manages to pack an almighty punch. Features Of Blown Youth is brilliant
theatre.
Bryce Hallett, The Australian
This is a powerful work given an excellent production, and it satisfyingly
develops a subtle plot out of its tangle of relationships. The end is
almost sickeningly bleak... this is genuinely disturbing theatre. See
it if you can.
The Age
Blown away - gritty young theatre to mess with your head.
Bryce Hallett, Metro Sydney Morning Herald
Oliver Kranz, Radio Kultur, Berlin
Features Of Blown Youth is vital, compelling and utterly devastating theatre. Originally staged in Melbourne, it has lost nothing in its transplant to Sydney. In fact it has gained a razor quality to its already sharp edge through expedient editing and clarification. Truly an ensemble work.
Julietta Jameson, Daily Telegraph
1997 - Premiere
Economiser Building, Melbourne International
Arts Festival
1999
Performance Space, Sydney
Theater am Halleschen Ufer, Theater Der Welt
Festival, Berlin, Germany
Direction
Adriano Cortese
Assistant Direction
Bob Daoud
Text
Raimondo Cortese
Performed by
Arthur Angel, Kristina Bidenko, Beth Buchanan,
Zoe Burton, Patrick Moffatt, Robert Morgan,
Torquil Neilson and Tess Masters.
Set Design
Dan Potra
Costume Design
Ina Shanahan
Lighting Design
Lisa Trewin
Music
KIm Salmon
La Mama, Melbourne
Fertility Of Objects -better described as a dried blood burlesque than a black comedy -reinforces my initial impression that Cortese is an outstanding new dramatist.
Chris Boyd, Herald Sun
Fertility Of Objects is a sharp reminder of everything theatre should be. Truthful, entertaining, honest and thought provoking. More please.
C E C Busby, Theatre Reviews
1995 - Premiere
La Mama, Melbourne
1996
La Mama, Melbourne
Direction
Lynne Ellis
Text
Raimondo Cortese
Performed by
Zoe Burton and Patrick Moffatt
Set Design
Lynne Ellis
Lighting Design
Lisa Trewin
Napier Street Theatre, Melbourne
Reviews
Raimondo Cortese belongs to a new breed of playwrights who are alive to
the possibilities of the theatrical as opposed to the prosaically representational
that passes for a lot of modern theatre these days. They look beyond the
kitchen sink to a vista extending as far as the eye can see. Or as far
as words can take them. Their richly imagistic language contravenes all
the sumptuary laws imposed by the plain-Jane writing school approach,
their baroque conceits often outrageous. It is, you suspect, a reaction
in part against the dullards who believe theatre should be "relevant".
The Room, I am happy to say, is not "relevant".... The Room
is not a comfortable evening in the theatre. It is well worth it, however,
for Jerome Pride's intricate performance and the emergence of a strong
new voice in Raimondo Cortese.
Simon Hughes, The Age
The performance of Jerome Pride turns Raimondo Cortese's dense, lengthy,
monologue The Room into a liquid and hypnotic night at the theatre. The
Room, poetic and daring, continues Cortese's fascination with the mental
landscape of characters who isolate themselves from the outside world.
The Room is unusual in that the only narrative is of a gradual and cumulative
decline in the mental credibility of the character: there is no plot,
no emotional development, no journey. The attention to detail is spectacular...
The production is also very funny; Pride is debonair and loquacious, his
demeanour mocking and his physicality explosive. This is a rough, disturbing
production, but voyeuristically mesmerising, nonetheless - in the manner
of a car accident or American Psycho.
Fiona Scott-Norman, The Bulletin
Chris Boyd, Herald Sun
1995 Victorian Green Room Award for:
Distinctive Contribution to Melbourne Theatre
(Sound Design)
1995 Victorian Green Room Award Nomination for:
Best Playwright
Best Director
Most Outstanding Performer
Emerging Designer
1995 - Premiere
Napier Street Theatre, Melbourne
Direction
Marcia Ferguson
Text
Raimondo Cortese
Performed by
Jerome Pride
Lighting Design
Paul Jackson
Sound Designer
Darren Steffen
Napier Street Theatre, Melbourne
Theatreworks, Melbourne
Arts Victoria
Word for word - perhaps the most impressive new play to appear on our stages this year. Bar none. Two lovers, a man and a woman, fantasise - literally - to the death. Raimondo Cortese, the playwright, displays the same kind of natural intelligence and passion for language that can be found in Shakespeare. Even in the vortex of lust, Cortese's lovers spin words into silken rope. Lucrezia and Cesare is dangerous, dazzling theatre. You have been warned.
Chris Boyd, Herald Sun
1994 Victorian Green Room Award Nomination for:
Best New Australian Play
1994 - Premiere
Napier Street Theatre, Melbourne
1998
Theatreworks, Melbourne
Directors Cut, Victorian Tour
Direction
Adriano Cortese
Jason Blake
Text
Raimondo Cortese
Performed by
Adriano Cortese and Kelly Tracey
Zoe Burton and David Tredinnick
Set Design
Ben Anderson
Lighting Design
Lisa Trewin
Costume Design
Jacqueline Everitt
or The Upside-Down Bell
La Mama, Melbourne
Upstairs Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney
(The play) aims to make the writer, Raimondo Cortese, invisible, and, in its skillful employment of situational dialogue, it succeeds. (The actors) tease out the possibilities of the dialogue with a light touch, making the final shock all the more effective.
Helen Thomson, The Age
1994 - Premiere
Upstairs Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney
1995
La Mama, Melbourne
1996
La Mama, Melbourne
Direction
Adriano Cortese
Brett Adam
Text
Raimondo Cortese
Performed by
Jerome Pride and Kelly Tracey
Beth Buchanan and Luke Elliott
Lighting Design
Lisa Trewin