Live theatre returns to Sydney

Lambert House Enterprises is thrilled to present a season of Keith Bunin’s hit play The Credeauz Canvas at El Rocco Café and Theatre, Kings Cross from Thursday July 23rd.

The production, believed by its producers to be the first post-lockdown play to open, will be presented under strict Health directives with audiences, initially at least, limited to 24 people per performance and all socially distanced.

All COVID-associated instructions will be in place, with the venue thoroughly cleaned upstairs and down,
hand sanitiser available and audiences advised to wear masks, depending on health regulations closer to the time.

Audiences will also be placed at the back of the room, at a considerable distance from the actors.

Originally envisaged as a totally immersive theatrical experience (like the company’s hit season of Relative Merits in the same venue last year), current conditions forced a rethink for this production and much creative resourcefulness. Initial rehearsals all took place by ‘Zoom’ conferencing.

Recent easing has allowed for live, socially distanced, rehearsals, but the prime consideration has been the audience’s experience and safety. Producer-director Les Solomon says that, as restrictions change and ease, it’s “a moveable feast” and more adjustments will be made as the season goes.

I’m confident this brilliant cast of actors will deliver a highly intimate, bold and totally absorbing version of this great play.

The Credeaux Canvas is the story of three twenty-somethings struggling to survive. There is a promising bi-sexual artist, his room-mate (a disenchanted and disinherited real estate agent) and this character’s girlfriend, a promising singer. They hatch a plan to dupe a wealthy art connoisseur into buying a forged painting, purportedly by French artist Jean-Paul Credeaux. A window into the disillusionment of entitled generation Ys in the early 2000s, the play is generously laced with humour, sexual tension and a famous, very unusual nude scene! There are great moments of both irony and tragedy that have kept audiences around the world enthralled for nearly twenty years. Solomon is assisted by Isaac Broadbent and it stars Samson Alston, Jasper Bruce, Rachel Marley, Tom Kelly and Beth Daly as Tess.

The Credeaux Canvas was first produced off-Broadway in 2001 and given its first non-American premiere in Sydney under Lambert’s company banner at the Stables Theatre in February 2002. There was subsequently a revival of the play at the Seymour Centre ‘Reginald’ in early 2015. This new production brings a totally new approach with the play placed within a small café-like setting. When the audience comes down the stairs into the historic El Rocco room they will be entering the world of ‘Winston’ with his art decorating the walls.

They will feel they are almost intruding into the world of a burgeoning New York artist in turn of the millennium New York!

 

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The Credeaux Canvas by Keith Bunin

El Rocco Café and Theatre, 154 Brougham Street, Kings Cross
Playing time: 1 hour 50 mins with 10 min interval | Seating capacity: 24 (more As Restrictions Ease*)
Dates: 23-26 July Thurs-Sun 7pm (plus 2pm Sun) | 28 July Tues, Wed, Thurs 7pm, Sun 5pm
Season Previews: July 23^rd & 24^th at 8pm | Season from July 25^th to 23 August.
Bookings: www.trybooking.com/BKFGC

This production features adult themes including suicide, strong language & some explicit nudity. No children under 16 years admitted.