British Plaudits For Our Peter Pan
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday March 23, 1995
NEWTOWN'S New Theatre has been put on the international map by drama critic Sheridan Morley of The Spectator.
His review column in the latest issue of The Spectator is headed "Wizards of Oz", but although he attended the Perth Festival and a performance of David Williamson's new play, Dead White Males, at the Opera House, Morley writes: "... the best play I saw was also the most surprising to have come from down-under: at the New Theatre in Sydney. Barry Lowe's The Death Of Peter Pan is a haunting account of J. M. Barrie and the lost boys of the Llewellyn-Davies family whom he adopted; specifically his favourite, Michael, the one who was drowned in a gay suicide pact at Oxford in 1921. This is a Peter Pan we must have over here soon."
The administrator of the New Theatre, George Hoad, said yesterday that although he has not yet received a call from London about the transfer of the play to the West End, he is now waiting confidently by the phone.
In his review, Morley, son of the late actor Robert Morley, also praised the Northern Rivers Performing Arts company's production of The Cars That Ate Paris (an adaptation of the Peter Weir film by Lyndon Terracini), which he saw at the Perth Festival. Referring to the new David Williamson work, Dead White Males, Morley writes: "... although it only intermittently works as either drama or black comedy, its power lies in the thought that Australia has merely exchanged the cultural cringe towards Europe for genuflection towards the worst of American college campus new-speak."
In addition to his reviews for The Spectator, Morley contributes a monthly newsletter on London theatre to the national drama newspaper, Theatre Australasia.
© 1995 Sydney Morning Herald
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