Oil (Sydney Theatre Co) ★★★★★

Written by Ella Hickson. Sydney Theatre Company. Nov 4 – Dec 16, 2023.

May, the heroine of Ella Hickson’s 2016 play Oil, is timeless. She is both a storytelling tool, an archetype that spans hundreds of years, and a mother doing her best for her daughter. But ‘doing her best’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘doing good’. If nothing else, Oil is about the cycles of our lives and the loops humanity finds itself stuck in.

Hickson gives a biography of the petroleum trade, from its introduction in the 19th century to a speculative future after we have exhausted the fuel. Millions of years in the making, humanity manages to squander it in mere centuries. This history is anchored by May (a brilliant Brooke Satchwell) and her daughter Amy (Charlotte Friels). Starting in Cornwall, England in 1889, the play travels to turn of the century Tehran, 1970’s London, near future Baghdad and back to Cornwall in the middle of the 21^st Century. In each period, mother and daughter fight over their visions of the future and their place in it. 

May evolves from curious, beaten-down housewife, to ambitious, grafting maid, to CEO of a global petrol-chemical company and beyond, rising and falling with the fortunes of the oil industry. At every step she is striving for her own power and independence, and trying to raise her daughter to have more and be better than she was. Here is where fossil fuels meet ossified opinions. While May is a hard-working survivor, Amy is a child of relative security, with a worldview at odds with her mothers. For May, oil is a saviour, but Amy sees the destruction wrought. 

There is a definite air of ‘2016’ to the play. Imagining the state of the world in the lead up to the dual nationalistic earthquakes of Brexit and Trump, there is a sharp edge to the discussion of Britain’s fading global power and the impact of vampiric colonialism. May’s arguments of how the oil industry has given education and ‘civilisation’ to other nations reeks of the same self-defensive denial and dream of lost glories that drove the nation to self-immolation. 

Satchwell is revelatory as May. Her first stage role in 13 years proves she is up there with our best performers. While she’s been giving us lighter, friendlier fare on screen for decades, her recent turn to serious drama is reaping rewards. She instantly brought to mind UK actress Billie Piper, both for the power of her performance and her ascendance to acting acclaim. My Christmas wish to all our theatres is “cast Brooke Satchwell please”!

At two and half hours long, full of some dense, combative material, Oil is not for those seeking a light-hearted night at the theatre. Comparisons to the work of Caryl Churchill are apt. Hickson messes around with form to give us stories suited to the theatre and not the screen. The result is transcendent and meaty. You won’t be sitting back and relaxing, you’ll be leaning in to see what’s coming next.