Enter the kaleidoscopic realm of rich amber, emerald green, royal blue, opulent purple, and deep fuchsia that is the Silk Ikats exhibition at the AGNSW.

With most pieces originating from Uzbekistan in the late 1880s, the intense colours have evidently lasted flawlessly, having been obtained from natural resources (yellow from saffron, black from pomegranate skin, red from crushed cochineal insects, and indigo from the indigo plant imported from India).

Exhibiting dress is always a challenge, because clothing is made to be worn on the body, rather than on static mannequins in a quiet, dimly lit room. While the robes in the show are exquisitely beautiful, some of the display is disappointingly ambiguous as to how the pieces are actually worn. It seems the emphasis is more on the textiles themselves and the mind-bogglingly complex dying, binding and weaving process behind the dress objects, rather than on how they were used.

If you rely on your imagination to picture the pieces worn amongst dramatic sand dunes or Islamic architecture you can be partly transported to the exotic context in which they belong.

Until October 11. AGNSW, The Domain. $5-8, 9225 1744 or artgallery.nsw.gov.au

As we follow the heroic Prince Pericles (Marcus Graham) on his myth-laden journey through ancient, exotic and richly coloured worlds, we witness the menacing sea rob him of his beloved, his child, his fame and success.

While this new production of Shakespeare’s Pericles from John Bell features strong performances, flawless choreography and enticing design – it’s hard to really fall into the journey it proposes. Something about it is too shambled, distanced and synthetic to sustain a lasting connection.

Thankfully the TaikOz musicians who are on stage with the actors provide a needed sense of drama and urgency, waking us up in the dullest moments with their penetrating primal beats and theatrical physicality. But it seems the reason the play is so rarely performed is that it’s just not a very good one.

Until August 1. Sydney Opera House. 9250 7777 or sydneyoperahouse.com

Hot off the press: the latest from local independent publisher and distributor Rainoff is PRETTY TELLING I SUPPOSE, a new book of photographs by local artist Samuel Hodge. The beautiful hard cover compilation of images is launching July 1st at 6pm, shop 25/114 Burton St, Darlinghurst.  The night will also mark the birth a new pop up bookstall curated by Rainoff in the same space. Open for two weeks only, it will be a hub of their favourite books, magazines and zines, many of which are not readily available in Australia. Alongside their Rainoff publications they’ll be stocking such delectables as Apartmento, Petit Mal, BUTT, Purple, SEDE, Serps, DADDY magazine, doing bird, Carol Bove, Cosmic Wonder Free Press, Fantastic Man, Here and There, Izrock Pressings, Kingsboro Press, Mountain Fold, Museum Paper, Nieves, The Spring Press, O.H.W.O.W. and PAM Books … Stand warned that you’ll easily browse and ogle away a whole afternoon in there.

Not a musical: a play with songs. After an acclaimed season in Melbourne earlier this year Poor Boy is opening in Sydney this week. I caught up with co-writer Matt Cameron during rehearsals and asked him how he came to work with legendary songwriter Tim Finn (of Split Enz and the Finn Brothers) on the script. “I wouldn’t have dared approach him myself,” said Matt. “A mutual friend knew that I was a die hard fan and that he was keen to get involved in theatre; and after I got over my initial anxiety we met and we were simpatico from the outset.”

The story they developed together is about two families and an unlikely bond they form after a supernatural occurrence. One family has lost their son in an accident; the other is being disowned by their son as his real family. It brings up notions of belonging, parenting, possession, loss and coming to terms with the fact that a child is its own person. It’s also drawing from an idea that behind every normal façade is something peculiar: “We all live near families we purport to know but we really have no idea about the mysteries that are behind every door, even in our own families.”

The production features songs by Tim Finn sung live by the cast, who are accompanied by a 5-piece band onstage. I asked Matt if it was ever a challenge to avoid being emotionally prescriptive with the music, especially when some of the songs have iconic status. “I think the music is placed organically,” he said, “there is an intrinsic place for it, and a clear integration. The songs are not being sung to tell the audience what to feel, they’re being sung because the characters singing them have run out of words to encapsulate what they are feeling.” Directed by Melbourne Theatre Company’s Artistic Director, Simon Phillips, Poor Boy will be showing at Sydney Theatre from July 6 to August 1. sydneytheatre.com.au

Following his acclaimed recent work with STC as director of the epic production The War of the Roses, Benedict Andrews says he has enjoyed returning to something as fine, precise and emotionally fraught as Martin Crimp’s The City.

Opening this week, the darkly comic, mystery-filled play tells the story of a married couple who are having trouble communicating with each other. Andrews says he likens it to crystal which a thought or image gets shot through and then refracts: “You get multiple versions of the same image, which are parallel and all true.”

He describes the play as a metafiction which highlights its own construction while reflecting on the act of writing. “When a writer renders their views the result is simultaneously true and not true,” he says. “What is the betrayal and what is the fidelity in an act of translation? What happens when everything becomes a series of mirrors reflecting themselves? If you’re living inside a simulacrum, what is real and what is the copy?”

The notion of translation throughout the play is also something fundamental to theatre, says Andrews. “One of the things I love about theatre is the fact that one text is constantly being replayed. Hamlet will be retold according to the various eras and cultures it goes through and the various people who interpret it. Everyone watching theatre knows the person stabbed as Hamlet will get up at the end. They know his death is an act of translation. Even a contemporary play that is retold night after night is each time new, but also the same.”

On another level is the running idea of cities as artificial constructions that are eternally incomplete and always reflecting other stories. “If we’re involved in a far away war and the wealth of our society is based upon that war,” says Andrews, “then there is a ghost pulverized city beneath our city. Everyone living in the city with the hope of having a good life is complacent, and thus the state is built on violence.”

And is it as bleak as it sounds? “This is a relationship that is taken beyond the brink of collapse to a point where it’s unknown, and in order for them to continue everything must become more unknown. I think there’s hope in that: it’s not an easy hope and there no solution or sentimentality but it’s an idea of stripping away illusion.”

29 June – 9 August. Warf 2, Sydney Theatre Company, Walsh Bay. $30-75, 9250 1777 or sydneytheatre.com.au

The title of curator/critic Stuart Koop’s new compilation of contemporary Australian art is not just a reference to the perceived geographic and cultural isolation of the nation. It also relates to a theme he identifies within this generation of artists towards more general feelings of disorientation. As he says in his introduction “It seems contemporary Australian art still betrays our isolation – not just at the end of the world but also in a far corner or the galaxy.”

We might take this idea as a taster for the 2010 Sydney Biennale, which is subtitled The Beauty of Distance. According to Artistic Director David Elliot, “in a land that has traditionally regarded distance as a disadvantage, the art specially chosen for this exhibition will celebrate the many different beauties of distance by showing contemporary perspectives from all around the world.”

Showcasing the work of James Angus, Kate Benyon, Pat Brassington, A Constructed World, Michael Doolan, Fiona Foley, Marco Fusinato, Simryn Gill, Andrew Hurle, Mathew Jones, Danius Kesminas, Callum Morton, Patricia Piccinini, Tim Silver, Ricky Swallow, Louise Weaver and Ah Xian, Crackle includes short essays on each artist and over 100 colour reproductions.

ima.org.au/pages/publishing

Nobody does obsessive torturous  guilt quite like Dostoevsky. His final novel The Brothers Karamazov deals with the same moral dilemmas about crime and punishment that had been explored in Crime and Punishment: Is there any use in confessing? Is the painful inner anguish one goes through for a terrible sin they commit enough penalty on its own, or do we need public, externally inflicted punishment?

Adapted from a single chapter of The Brothers Karamazov by Sydney Theatre Company Associate Director Tom Wright, The Duel is a testosterone-fuelled hour and a half examination of cowardice, courage, shame, forgiveness, and the process of ‘fessing up.

The procedure of self-examination and laying out the truth takes place under stark, uncomfortable, neon lights; an appropriate choice by lighting designer Damien Cooper. Stuck in the horribly lit, cheaply furnished, claustrophobic room with a window but no door, the characters recite and re-enact the text while occasionally smoking, drinking and dancing to bad house music (it’s all a bit Big Brother Household).

The strength of the production relies primarily on the timeless power of Dosteovsky’s verse and the brilliant performance from Brian Lipson as the ‘mysterious visitor’. While the structure could do with a little work, it marks quite a feat from emerging 24-year-old director Matthew Lutton.

Until June 20. Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay. $25-45, 9250 1777 or sydneytheatre.com.au/next-stage

Ken Unsworth’s use of suspended objects has become a signature motif in his long career as a performance, sculpture and instillation artist, but it takes on new significance in relation to death, specifically the recent passing of his wife, to whom his latest project A Ringing Glass (Rilke) is in honour of.

From a skeleton hanging upside down to a hospital bed afloat in space to a grand piano exploded into pieces hovering above us – nothing in the series of instillations is earth bound. Suspended in the air, it is uncertain whether the inanimate objects are in the process of rising or falling, and with this quality of transcendence they provide an extensive momento mori, reminding us of the mortality of ourselves and all things.

The various rooms can be seen as different chapters of the life of Elisabeth, who was an accomplished pianist and a driving force in Ken’s career for the 54 years they were married. “After the death of her son from a brain tumour at age 33 Elisabeth set up a fellowship in his name for young medical researchers and she was always happy to be able to talk about him,” the artist said. “I feel the same way about her; she was such an important part of my life and I want to acknowledge and remember that.”

The tribute to Elisabeth’s life extends beyond the four instillations to the lived experience of a decadent event which was hosted by Unsworth to open the exhibition on Cockatoo Island. In a custom built ballroom, 160 guests were invited to dine, dance, watch performances and listen to a posthumous piano recital by Elisabeth, and footage from the night is being screened in the space for the duration of the exhibition.

While it’s billed as a site-specific instillation, the white walled rooms have been built within the island’s dramatic and cavernous Turbine Hall in a way that doesn’t really incorporate the space at all. Over the last 12 months Cockatoo Island has established itself as a unique gem of an arts venue (particularly with the ‘08 Sydney Biennale and the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in January), and it seems a curious choice to stage A Ringing Glass in claustrophobic rooms that could belong to any conventional gallery space – but none the less the project marks quite a comeback from an important Australian artist who has been out of the limelight for several years.

A Ringing Glass (Rilke) is open to the public free until June 28.

We open with two single beds on stage. One has meticulously clean, tucked in sheets; the other is rumpled and stained with sweat and filth. We meet Elling, a neurotic over-thinker, and Kjell, an under-washed under-thinker. The two lost souls forge an unlikely bond after ending up in the same room at a mental hospital, and when they get out into the real world they realise just how much they need each other.

I often feel that great stories about the power of friendship are more moving than those of romantic love, and Elling has one of the biggest hearts of any recent production. The script comes via the film adaptation of the cult novel series by one of Norway’s most popular contemporary writers, Ingvar Ambjørnsen, and with Pamela Rabe’s fine direction and excellent casting this is a potent and irresistible entertaining piece of theatre.

With so many novels, films and plays retaining pessimistic focus on the institutionalisation of mental health, Elling offers a fresh and hopeful take on what happens after the asylum, as these two misfits on society’s fringe (re)learn to function. Charming yet unsentimental, it walks the tragic-comic tightrope with perfect balance. 

Until July 12. Sydney Theatre Company, Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay. $30-75, 9250 1777 or sydneytheatre.com.au 

Why just hear your music when you could see it too? That seems to be the premise of the huge rise in the production and popularity of music documentaries, taking audiences on tour through the histories and mythologies of their favourite music personalities and movements. Not in its third year, the Sounds on Screen program in the Sydney Film Festival will be serving up an eclectic feast of this brand of film, and a tasting plate is prepared for you here:

The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector

The legendary music producer who worked with both Elvis and The Beatles is a notorious recluse who lives alone in his 30-room mansion. This rare look at the peculiar outsider reaches us just months after his charge with second-degree murder.

Soul Power

It Might Get Loud

Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2′s The Edge and the White Stripes’ Jack White. Three generations of electric guitar virtuosos talk about the electric guitar and get loud.

Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Follow the Sengalese pop sensation (named by Time Magazine as one of the hundred most influential people in the world of art) on his world tour after the controversy of his album Egypt. An ode to his love of the Islamic faith, the album won him a Grammy Award but is labeled as a work of blasphemy by conservative spiritual leaders.

Liza with a Z            

A concert filmed for television in 1972 straight after Cabaret finished, Bob Fosse’s Liza with a Z won of four Emmy awards, including best performance by Liza Minnelli. This remastered print enhances the soundtrack and gets fans ready for Minnelli’s Australian tour later this year.

For the full program go to sff.org.au